LABOUR’S ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT :
STILL A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITHThe Labour Against the War AGM & Summer Conference “The Price of War” was held on Saturday 03 June 2006. A packed hall at Hungerford Primary School was the venue for a successful event that included speakers from across the labour and anti-war movement. Tony Benn, Alan Simpson MP, Dr Glen Rangwala, Christine Shawcroft (LP NEC), John McDonnell MP, Dorothy Macedo (Unison), Barry Camfield (Asst Gen Sec, TGWU), Manuel Cortes (Asst Gen Sec, TSSA) and Kate Hudson (Chair, CND) all addressed the assembled LAtW delegates who came from across the country. The day included plenty of time for questions, discussion and debate that resulted in the following seven resolutions being carried, these will inform Labour Against the War’s campaign throughout the coming year.
Thank you to all those labour Party members and supporters who attended and helped make the day such a great success.
Photographs of the event can be found at the following link: http://www.artzone.org.uk/LAtWthePriceofWar/index.html
RESOLUTION #1
THREE YEARS OF WAR & OCCUPATION:
THE COST TO THE IRAQISLabour Against the War reaffirms:
1. Our opposition to the continuing occupation of Iraq, condemns the continued abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners by the coalition forces, and calls for an accurate audit of the actual cost of the invasion and occupation to the Iraqi people and their economy;
2. Our call for the speedy withdrawal of coalition forces and the dismantling of their military bases in favour of the Iraqi people being left free to build their country’s infrastructure, public services and education system, with assistance from international agencies if required.
Furthermore we call for the perpetrators of aggressive, pre-emptive wars to be brought to justice under international law and for the governments of the coalition to pay reparations for the rebuilding of Iraqi society and the Iraqi economy.
Labour Against the War supports the efforts of Tony Benn to ensure that those who break international law are brought to account.______________________________________________________________
Extract from Tony Benn’s letter to the UN Secretary General:
We note that the UK Government and the USA in coalition partnership during the period 2002 – 2006 have broken their obligations under The Geneva and Hague Conventions and Protocols and The Nuremberg Charter of 1945, and of The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court. In summary those breaches are:
1. Crimes Against Peace: Planning and Conducting an Aggressive War using deceit, including deliberately falsifying reports to arouse passion in support of this war.
2. Failure to ensure public order and safety by disbanding the army and police of Iraq, without properly replacing those functions.
3. Extensive destruction of service infrastructure, including drinking water, sewage systems, telephones and electricity supply, with grave consequences to the inhabitants of Iraq, especially in hospitals.
4. Deliberate damage to hospitals and medical facilities and personnel including the shooting up of Red Crescent ambulances, and prevention of movement of ambulances.
5. Failure to prohibit looting and arson resulting in the despoliation and pillage of museums, libraries, archaeological sites, hospitals, administrative buildings and state records.
6. Failure to respect cultural property including the use of the Babylon archaeological site as a military camp.
7. Economic exploitation of occupied territories by orders of The Provisional Coalition Administration to the benefit of foreign interests, including the use of Production Sharing Agreements, and IMF rules, even though warnings were made by the Attorney General that these may be construed as contrary to International Law.
8. Seizing botanical assets by Provisional Coalition Administration Order 81, which ends the prohibition of private ownership of biological resources, and introduces foreign monopoly rights over seeds.
9. Political persecution by initially sacking all Ba’ath Party members, thereby very severely reducing the administrative and professional class who had been obliged to be members.
10. Religious persecution: US Defence Secretary memo of 02 December 2002 sanctioned the use of religious humiliation against detainees.
11. Use of cable ties as a restraint to detainees’ wrists causing injury and unnecessary suffering.
12. Use of hooding detainees, wilfully causing mental suffering, especially when used for prolonged periods, or when combined with assault.
13. Use of dogs as a means of obtaining information authorised by US Defence Secretary memo of 02 December 2002.
14. Forcing detainees to stand for many hours as a means of obtaining information authorised by US Defence Secretary memo of 02 December 2002, and practised at Abu Ghraib and other US prisons.
15. Sexual and bodily humiliation of detainees, including rapes, and stripping naked for long periods.
16. Aggressive patrolling with indiscriminate mass arrests of males, including 14 year olds, indiscriminate destruction of property, and invasion of women’s’ quarters contrary to tenets of the Koran.
17. Killing and wounding treacherously by indiscriminate shooting at check points, strafing of groups of obvious civilians, and disproportionate use of force in residential areas.
18. Degrading treatment of detainees by marking foreheads and bodies with indelible marker pens as a means of identification and control.
19. Use of cluster bombs on grounds of military expediency. As well as being munitions causing random unnecessary suffering by steel spicules, incendiary and depleted uranium bomblets, a large number don’t explode, effectively becoming land mines.
20. Use of depleted uranium shells, on the grounds of military expediency, causing a very long-term legacy of radioactive damage to the environment, cancers and birth defects.
21. Use of white phosphorous (WP) chemical munitions.
22. Collective penalties in Fallujah during the first assault of April 2004 when 1,000 Iraqis including 600 women and children were killed.
23. Evacuation of Fallujah, (a city nearly the size of Cardiff) in preparation for a second disproportionate assault in November 2004, which employed the use of starvation and thirst on an entire population, targeting of hospitals, medical staff and ambulances, indiscriminate shooting of non combatants and destruction of private and state property
24. Failure to keep a proper record of POW names and locations.
25. Failure to treat POWs humanely, especially those held in the open in the sun.
26. Abolition of Habeas Corpus: holding an estimated 30,000 prisoners without charge or trial over an indefinite period:
27. Failure to record Iraqi deaths and injuries with consequent failure to determine proportionality or medical requirements of survivors. Also causing unnecessary suffering to relatives of the deceased.
28. Unilaterally holding that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to certain actions, especially to the use of private security contractors, and mercenaries and to the detention of certain types of enemy combatants.
RESOLUTION #2
THE COST OF ELECTIONS IN IRAQ:
DEATH SQUAD DEMOCRACY?Labour Against the War notes that:
1. on 15th December 2005 the first permanent 275-member Iraqi National Assembly under a new Iraqi Constitution was “elected”;
2. a “National Unity” Government is only now emerging after months of negotiations and delay;
3. the military occupation has not been able to create the conditions for the Iraqi people to move towards representative self-government;
4. no election in Iraq can be truly democratic while the country remains under military occupation;
5. the Iraqi Interior Ministry is alleged to be controlling death squads;
6. continued participation of British forces in the military occupation of Iraq is part of the problem and not part of the solution, recognising that the occupation itself is unjustifiable and destructive of both lives and resources.
STATEMENT #3
THE COST OF WAR TO THE LABOUR PARTY:
VOTERS PUNISH BLAIRLabour Against the War welcomes the Labour Party General Election victory of 5th May 2005.
Labour Against the War notes that:
1. Our Party entered the General Election campaign of May 2005 defending a 167 majority and that this majority was slashed to 66 (now reduced further to 64). Although the Labour Party won a historic consecutive third term our Party was elected on only a 35.3% share of the vote (just 21.6% of the total electorate);
2. Labour lost control of 18 councils and lost 319 council seats in the local elections on 4th May 2006 – the worst Labour performance in over twenty years with just 26% of the vote (less than 10% of the total electorate);
3. The rise of the Tory vote (their best result since 1992), the inertia of the Liberal Democrat vote and the rise of the fascist BNP who gained 27 councillors (more than doubling its representation to 44 councillors), many at Labour’s expense;
4. The Government’s support is draining away at successive elections and splintering to the smaller and even fascist parties. We recognise that no number of reshuffles can address the crisis of confidence among Labour supporters in the Prime Minister;
5. The illegal and immoral war on, and the continuing occupation of, Iraq and the consequent erosion of civil liberties have played a large part in disillusioning would-be Labour voters leaving many of them wanting to punish Tony Blair for participating in George W. Bush’s “war on terror”;
6. Many good comrades have left the Party and among those who remain many are not prepared to campaign actively.
RESOLUTION #3a
THE COST OF WAR TO THE LABOUR PARTYLabour Against the War notes:
1. The general election of 2005, subsequent by elections and the local election of May 2006 show electoral support draining away from Labour. In 2005 a parliamentary majority of 167 was slashed to 66. Subsequent by elections have seen it fall further to 64. We won our historic third term with 35.5% of the popular vote – just 21.6% of the total electorate. The May 2006 local elections were our worst result for over twenty years. Less than 10% of the total electorate voted Labour.
2. The anti Tory coalition no longer exists. May 2006 was their best result for almost 15 years. Opinion polls show them up to 6% ahead of Labour. On cores issues such as education and health, they are now trusted more than us.
3. The Government has continually focused on refugees and asylum seekers, refusing to extol the virtues of inward migration and the positive contribution it makes to British cultural, political and economic life. The Government has played the race card. The result has been the growth of the BNP and the election of BNP councillors.
4. The illegal and immoral war on Iraq and subsequent occupation has played a large part in disillusioning Labour members. Many good comrades have left the party. Among those who remain, many are not prepared to campaign actively. At the same time, exposure of the manoeuvring and evasions told to the British public in an attempt to justify the war have led to a catastrophic loss of trust in our party amongst our voters and supporters.
Labour Against the War resolves to campaign to renew the Labour Party by working to re-recruit disillusioned members and well as new ones.
RESOLUTION #4
THE COST TO CIVIL LIBERTIES:
TAKING LIBERTIES, SPINNING TERRORLabour Against the War condemns the London Bombings of 07 July 2005 and also condemns the loss of civil liberties in Britain.
Labour Against the War condemns the police “shoot-to-kill” policy that so tragically ended the life of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Labour Against the War condemns legislation to introduce identity cards that will neither reduce the threat of terrorism nor make people feel safer.
Labour Against the War condemns the demonisation of asylum seekers and recognises that this increases community tensions.
Labour Against the War condemns legislation that restricts or denies people the right to peaceful protest.
Labour Against the War will continue to stand up for civil liberties in an open democratic society. We shall continue to oppose racist scapgoating of minority communities.
Labour Against the War will seek common cause with the trade unions and other kindred organisations to campaign for an exension of civil liberties, including trade union rights, at home and abroad.
RESOLUTION #5
THE FINANCIAL COST OF WAR
ON IRAQ & AFGHANISTANLabour Against the War notes that
1. Gordon Brown’s announced in his budget statement an additional £800 million funding for the “war on terror” bringing the total to £5.6 billion (this is expected to rise to over £6 billion by the end of the year due to additional demands from the Ministry of Defence). That’s nearly £3 million every single day for continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;
2. Britain spends £33 billion annually on its military budget. We note that a fraction of this sum could achieve so much more if directed towards socially useful projects both at home and abroad.
We call upon the British Government to stop funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to report to the House of Commons the accurate cost of these wars and instead to invest resources in Labour’s priorities as determined at the Labour Party Conference 2005.
RESOLUTION #6
IRAN : THE NEXT TARGET
IN THE “WAR ON TERROR”?Labour Against the War opposes any pre-emptive strike on Iran and calls for the continuation of non-military solutions, including diplomatic and political initiatives, to resolve the current crisis.