Archive for November, 2009

« Older Entries

Motions for Hopi AGM

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Please email any amendments by Wednesday, November 25, midnight to office@hopoi.info

Motion 1
For a Middle East Free of Nuclear Weapons and other WMDs
Moshe Machover, London

The US imperialists, flanked by their hatchet man, Israel, and by their European camp followers — masquerading as ‘the international community’ – are accusing Iran of planning to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Under this pretext, they have mounted a vicious campaign of sanctions, whose real victims are the ordinary Iranian workers and impoverished masses; and they threaten Iran with massive military action.

We have no reason to believe in the imperialists’ accusation, for which no solid evidence has been produced so far. Nor do we have any reason to trust the Iranian theocrats’ protestations that their nuclear programme is for purely civilian use and that nuclear weapons are ‘un-Islamic’.

Irrespective of these accusations and counter-protestations, it is indisputable that the existence and potential spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East constitute a horrendous danger to the people of this volatile and conflict-ridden region, and an appalling global threat to humanity.

The imperialists’ campaign in fact adds to this danger, as one of its clear, albeit unstated, aims is to preserve Israel’s regional monopoly of nuclear weapons.

Israel, the most aggressive and expansionist state in the Middle East, launched the regional nuclear arms race in the late 1950s; in this it was secretly aided by France — as payment for Israel’s service to French imperialism in the Suez aggression of 1956. Subsequently, the US and its satellites, including Britain, have lent their tacit support to Israel’s nuclear status by joining the silent charade and studiously avoiding any official mention of it. They have tolerated Israel refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) and to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1996).

Israel’s massive arsenal of nuclear weapons – as well as other weapons of mass destruction – constitutes a constant grave provocation and a temptation to other states in the region to join the nuclear arms race. The suspected (albeit as yet unproven) nuclear-weapon ambition of the Iranian theocracy is just one illustration of this grave risk.

Attempts to preserve Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly by use or threat of armed force will backfire, by reinforcing the incentive of the targeted state to produce nuclear weapons, or to develop and stockpile an alternative arsenal of other weapons of mass destruction (chemical and bioligical), which have in fact been used in some Middle-East conflicts.

The only long-term means of preventing the peril of regional proliferation of nuclear weapons is the nuclear demilitarization of the entire Middle East.

We therefore call for a mass grass-root campaign for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, with the following aims:

• Prevention of development and manufacture of nuclear weapons and other
WMDs.

• De-commissioning of all existing nuclear weapons and other WMDs.

These must be underpinned by a treaty binding all states in the region, and verified by effective democratic international supervision.

We call upon all progressive organizations and individuals in this country, in the Middle East and throughout the world to join this campaign. In particular, we call upon the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the UK, and similar organizations elsewhere, to actively promote the above aims.

The campaign for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons is not a substitute for a campaign for global nuclear disarmament; on the contrary, the former is an integral part and a vital step towards the latter.

Motion 2
Sanctions are no alternative to war
Yassamine Mather, Glasgow

We are not privy to the discussion and divisions over Iran in the upper echelons of the US military and political establishment. We cannot therefore gauge the precise impact the election of Obama has made to the balance of forces in that ongoing debate. However, we do observe that:

a)      Broadly, the aggressive thrust of US policy towards Iran remains in place, despite the placatory noises Obama has occasionally made. This includes a military option, possibly of quite devastating force, as the hawkish Clinton has warned;

b)      This continuity provides a green light to Israel to continue its stand-off with the Tehran regime. A ‘unilateral’ Israeli strike cannot be excluded;

c)      Existing sanctions – correctly identified by Hopi as an existing form of ‘soft war’ on the country – have been revamped and added to by the new administration.

The imposition of new sanctions under Barack Obamas presidency has compounded an already dire economic situation:

  • The Iran Sanctions Enabling Act (IRSA) of 2009 allows local and state governments and their pension funds to divest from foreign companies or US subsidiaries with investments of more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector.
  • The Iran Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA) of 2009 imposes sanctions on companies who are involved in exporting refined petroleum products to Iran or who are expanding Iran’s capacity to produce its own refined products. Similar sanctions are likely to be imposed by France, the United Kingdom and Germany.
  • In the South Pars oilfields, almost 6,000 contract workers are threatened with job losses, as whole fields are abandoned following news that Total, Repsol and Shell are pulling out.
  • In Iran, oil workers are concerned about taking industrial action, because it might coincide with the imposition of new US sanctions, which will cause further hardship for ordinary Iranians during the winter.

Conference believes that:

1. Sanctions hurt ordinary people, not the rich and powerful.

2. They increase the power of the reactionary regime. The sanctions – and the ongoing threat of a military attack – have actually helped the theocratic regime whip the people into line.

3. Sanctions are often used in conjunction with a campaign for ‘regime change from above’ against the interests of the majority of the population. They are a disaster for the cause of democracy. Sanctions disorganise the working class as people squander their fighting energies on day-to-day struggles to simply survive. Sanctions dramatically degrade the ability of the working people to struggle collectively on their own account, to radically refashion society in their own image, to organise and fight.

4. The case of Iraq shows that democracy cannot be delivered from above. The horror in Iraq is not just a result of the 2003 invasion and the attempts to deliver US-style democracy with bombs. Prior to it, the 1990 UN-imposed sanctions on the Saddam regime caused the death of up to a million Iraqis. The once strong democratic movements in Iraq were crippled by two enemies: the dictator Saddam and the sanctions imposed on their country.

Conference instructs the next steering committee to:

  • oppose existing and new sanctions against Iran and to continue direct international working class solidarity with the aim of building the fighting capacity of the movement in Iran.
  • campaign against those in the movement who do view sanctions as a ‘peaceful’ method to deal with the clerical regime. In truth, sanctions are an integral part of a covert war on Iran being pursued particularly by Israel and the US.

Motion 3
Day of solidarity with Iranian workers
Ben Lewis, London

Conference notes:

1. The sanctions programme on Iran that continues to hit the Iranian working class materially, reduces their fighting energies and hinders their struggles to become the hegemonic force for genuine change in Iran.

2. The militancy of Iranian workers that has been at the core of the protests against the Iranian regime following the election crisis. The actions of Pars Wagon hunger strikers, Vahed bus workers and oil workers who have taken political strike action.

3. The billions of dollars spent by US ‘regime change from above’ plans – including cynical attempts to win over the workers’ movement, making the need for a proletarian internationalist solidarity even more urgent.

4. That protest actions against the Iranian regime organised by bodies like the International Transport Federation and the International Trade Union Confederation fail to mention imperialism, sanctions and the threat of war. This is no accident. In reality, these organisations consciously dovetail the US’s plans for ‘regime change from above’. But real change can only come from below – in Iran as well as the imperialist countries.

Conference further notes that:

1. A necessary aspect of campaigning against sanctions is to provide positive material and ideological solidarity for our brothers and sisters in Iran – solidarity that is implacably opposed to any imperialist intervention and that sows no illusions in this or that faction of the ruling theocracy

To this end, conference resolves to:

1. Organise a ‘Day of Action for Iranian Workers’ in February 2010, following on from the success of the solidarity day jointly organised by Hopi and the Labour Representation Committee on August 1, which raised over £1000

2. Draft an appeal to all our supporters nationally and internationally to be drawn into organising this event, raising the banner of principled international solidarity and aiming to raise at least £2000 for strike funds, organising materials and other necessities for workers taking brave action in extremely precarious circumstances


Motion 4
No to state murder and repression
Charlie Pottins, London

HOPI notes reports that since Iran’s post-election crisis the regime has cracked down with particular harshness on national minorities, as instanced by the use of the death penalty against Kurdish militants.

We demand an end to this state murder and repression, which is the rulers’ way of holding power by force. We affirm that the best way to counter foreign exploitation of conflicts, win the confidence of minorities, and unite the working people, and unite the working people, is to support the principles of equality and self-determination for all.

HOPI rejects the absurd attempt by Zionists and Western propagandists to compare the Islamicist regime with Hitler fascism. In rejecting offers of “rescue” by Israel, Iran’s Jewish community, the biggest in the Middle East outside the Zionist State, has undermined the propaganda and to some extent obstructed the drive to all-out war.

At the same time, we condemn the regime’s hosting of a Holocaust revisionist conference, by which Ahmadinejad has given succour to antisemites and neo-Nazis who aim to attack Jews and, incidentally, Muslims, in many lands. In this and other ways the Islamicist regime has discredited itself and any claims it had to be progressive in its international alignments and policies, including its use of Lebanese and Palestinian groups, and its intervention in Iraq. While not condemning those who, in desperate need, have accepted Iranian help and solidarity to which they are entitled, we will scrutinise the Islamicist regime’s international operations, and warn against those here who, whether from misguided idealism or material motives, seek to prettify the regime and uncritically endorse its “anti-imperialist” credentials.

Posted in HOPI blog | No Comments »

Is it the oil, stupid?

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

To say that oil figures prominently in the Middle East is to state cyrusbinathe obvious. However, does this mean that the politics of imperialism in the region should be solely or mainly explained through attempts to gain control over oilfields and pipelines? That has certainly been the approach of much of the left in Britain and elsewhere. Noted US-based academic Cyrus Bina, author of The economics of the oil crisis, disagrees with such crude simplifications. Having studied the oil industry, international relations and global economics for many years, he has developed a sophisticated Marxist theory of the oil crisis, oil rent, and monopoly and competition in the oil industry. Here, in this short, representative, article, first published in 2004, he makes a convincing case that the US under George W Bush was not concerned with obtaining direct control over oilfields.1 With the ongoing US-UK campaign to impose tougher sanctions on Iran, including its huge oil industry, plans for regime change brought about from above and, failing that, a devastating military strike, the left urgently needs to correct past mistakes. Cyrus Bina is about to embark on a speaking tour of Britain that will include meetings in Manchester, Glasgow and London. In particular he will be addressing the November 28 annual general meeting of Hands Off the People of Iran

Saddam Hussein was an ideal enemy and Iraq was an easy target. Iraq had already lost nearly two thirds of its forces and more than 80% of its infrastructure and civil society in the 1990-91 Gulf War and, if that was not enough, it was subjected to frequent American and British bombings, along with nearly 12 years of stringent sanctions. The war against a weak symbolic enemy seemed inevitable.2

In the May 12 2003 issue of The Nation, there appeared a tiny piece entitled, ‘It’s the oil, stupid’, by Michael T Klare, who – like much of the majority of the popular left – is obsessed with oil in connection with the deceitful invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration.

To be sure, the motivation of the Cheney-Wolfowitz gang and the impeachable actions of the president himself all point in the direction of personal gain. Similarly, the fact of the transfer of tens of billions of dollars from the public coffers to the willing hands of a handful of favourite companies that were readily chosen as the beneficiary of this destructive creation is beyond dispute. Yet, to be worthy of analysis, one needs to be brave enough to go beyond surface phenomena in order to grasp the complexities associated with deeper epochal understanding of this bizarre tragedy.

Writers like Klare and George Caffentzis (the latter, incidentally, holds that oil is a “metaphysical” commodity) should realise that their oil scenario, firstly, ignores the analytical periodisation of oil history into: (a) the cartelisation of oil; (b) the transitional period of 1950-72; and (c) the globalisation of the entire oil industry since the mid-1970s. Secondly, it overlooks the distinction between ‘administrative pricing’ and value theoretic price formation. Thirdly, it neglects the nature of property relations, formation of differential oil rents, and character of the Organisation of Oil-Exporting Countries (Opec) in the (post-1974) globalisation of oil. Fourthly, it discounts the pivotal role of the least productive US oilfields that is key to the worldwide pricing of oil. Fifthly, it fails to recognise that Opec prices are constrained by worldwide competitive spot (oil) prices, and thus Opec oil rents are subject to global competition. And finally their oil scenario fails to realise that the unqualified usage of words, such as ‘access’, ‘dependency’ and ‘control’, in the context of a globalised oil industry, is anachronistic.3

Hegemony and mediation

The concept of hegemony is indivisible and ‘organic’ in respect to its constituent economic, political and ideological counterparts. And it is due to the consensual internal dynamics and intrinsic ideological power of the whole that one can exert minimal external and antagonistic power projection. This, in a broad measure, defines hegemony and its relevance to international relations, for instance, during the rise and fall of Pax Americana (1945-79). Gramsci, nevertheless, focuses on the “organic intellectuals” and examines their relationship with the “world of production” mediated through the complex intricacies of “civil society” and “political society”.4

Hegemony, in my view, has four characteristics. It must be: (a) organically consensual; (b) internally driven; (c) historically endowed; and (d) institutionally mediating. The focus here is upon the rise and fall of Pax Americana, a historically specific inter-state transnational system that rose after 1945 and fell in the late 1970s. The matter of hegemony and hegemonic structure is the mutual characteristic of the system as a whole, and not a separate property of the hegemon. Therefore, given the demise of Pax Americana, the claim of American hegemony remains baseless.

The epochal measure of hegemony

In order to see the concrete manifestation of hegemony in the then-ascendant Pax Americana,5 one has to focus on the application of the (tripartite) ‘doctrine of global containment’ after World War II. This doctrine embodied: (a) the containment of the Soviet Union; (b) the containment of democratic/nationalist movements in the ‘third world’; and (c) the containment, cooption and moulding of the social, political and intellectual atmosphere in the United States.6

The example of the first containment is the forceful confinement of the Soviets behind the ‘iron curtain’ and imposition of cold war. The cold war was a multidimensional hegemonic phenomenon, spanning the economy, polity and the entire realm of culture and ideology worldwide.

Evidence of the second type of containment is the declaration of an anti-colonial policy, on the one hand, and subversion of the democratic national movements in the ‘third world’, on the other. This doctrine often led to covert campaigns and coup d’etats that brought a number of dictatorial regimes to power whose contradictory material existence and discursive mirror image have, nevertheless, become an embodiment of Pax Americana itself.7 At the same time, America’s deliberate attempt at the speedy economic transformation of these social formations – for instance, via the introduction and forceful implementation of universal land reform programmes – has led to their hasty inclusion within the capitalist sphere of transnational exploitation and transnational markets.

Finally, the third containment strategy was implemented in terms of US domestic thought control and marginalisation of independent and militant institutions and labour unions within America’s ‘civil society’. Thus, historically, the American state smashed the militant labour unions and political and professional institutions of the left in order to universalise a ‘hegemonic model’ of intellectual emulation that shifted the entire American political spectrum significantly to the reactionary right. McCarthyism was just the tip of the iceberg in this regard.8 Here, underpinning social relations, on the one hand, and the mediating economic, political and ideological institutions, on the other hand, have reflected the measure of hegemony embedded in this system.

At a more concrete level, since the 1970s, it is through the particular historical relationship of state and the manifold social, political and economic integration and disintegration vis-à-vis transnational capital that the US-dominated hierarchy of Pax Americana and thus American hegemony has come to an end. Yet during the ‘golden age’, Soviet containment had its own manifold objectives that proved successful. The containment of democracy and independence in the third world chunk of Pax Americana had, nonetheless, left some degree of formal national sovereignty. And post-war containment of people’s political thought and action in US domestic ‘civil society’ had not led to the establishment of a police state with arbitrary, pre-emptive and systemic totalitarian objectives, if not practices.

In December 2001, the Bush administration unveiled its ‘National strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction’.9 The Bush administration used the unfortunate events of September 11 2001 as a convenient cover in order to advance toward its ‘permanent war’ policy.10 This was a formal annunciation of the Doctrine of pre-emption, a fundamental policy break from the Doctrine of containment, as follows:

“An effective strategy for countering WMD [weapons of mass destruction], including their use and further proliferation, is an integral component of the national security strategy of the United States of America. As with the war on terrorism [ie, invasion of Afghanistan, etc], our strategy for homeland security, and our new concept of deterrence, the US approach to combat WMD represents a fundamental change from the past ….

“Because deterrence may not succeed, and because of the potentially devastating consequences of WMD use against our forces and civilian population, US military forces and appropriate civilian agencies must have the capability to defend against WMD-armed adversaries, including in appropriate cases through pre-emptive measures. This requires capabilities to detect and destroy an adversary’s WMD assets before these weapons are used” (emphasis added).11

The mismeasure of ‘blood for oil’

Institutionally, the traditional petroleum cartels must be viewed as a precursor to, and not a substitute for, the highly developed contemporary global oil market. Today’s oil sector is globally structured and competitive.12

Here, contrary to the bourgeois reading of the term, competition is neither perfect nor imperfect. It rather reflects the coercive aspect of concentration and centralisation of capital in the oil industry. Yet, the myth of the war-for-oil scenario is hard to resist.

On the right, in an interview, James Schlesinger remarked: “The United States [Bush, the father] has gone to war now, and the American people presume this will lead to a secure oil supply. As a society we have made a choice to secure access to oil by military means. The alternative is to become independent to a large degree of that secure access.”13 On the left, Michael Klare declared: “Two key concerns underlie the administration’s [Bush, the son] thinking: First, the United States is becoming dangerously dependent on imported petroleum to meet its daily energy requirements, and second, Iraq possesses the world’s largest reserves of untapped petroleum after Saudi Arabia.”14

Thus, the positions of the right and the left on the cause of these wars are remarkably identical. The question is, why? Is it because of the correctness of rightwing neoclassical theory in revealing the universal truth? Or is it because of the fallacious economic ideology that is uncritically accepted by the theoryless and clueless left?

Finally, the Indian leftist electronic journal Aspects of India’s economy devoted its entire December 2002 double-issue to ‘What is behind the invasion of Iraq’.15 The authors conclude, among other things, that the attempted conversion of oil revenues from the US dollar to the euro prompted the invasion of Iraq by United States. As Krugman pointed out in a short note, any possible shift from the US dollar to the euro on the part of Opec will result in a “small change”.16

However, the fly-by-night authors do not lose any opportunity to grasp this straw in the midst of dreadful confusion. The globalisation of oil since the mid-1970s has rendered the sui generis categories of ‘access’ and ‘dependency’ meaningless.17 Based on my value-theoretic framework, I distinguish between what is ‘organic’ and what is ‘conjectural’ in the pricing of oil. To be sure, the price of production of the highly explored oilfields within the US lower 48 states is the global centre of gravity of oil prices everywhere. As a result, in competition, the more productive oilfields in the world are potentially able to collect additional profits in terms of oil rents.

Let us look at a simple exercise, attempting the calculation of the value of all Iraqi proven oil reserves in today’s prices.18 Given the Iraqi proven oil reserves of nearly 110 billion barrels, in two separate assumptions, let us assume two alternative production schedules of 2.5 and 5 million daily barrels, as follows:

If the rate of utilisation of these reserves, ceteris paribus, will be set at 2.5 and 5 million average daily barrels, these oil reserves would be exhausted within nearly 120 years and 60 years, respectively. Accordingly, our respective annual production schedules are:
1. (2.5 x 365 = 912.5) 912.5 million annual barrels
2. (5 x 365 = 1,825) 1,825 million annual barrels.

Assuming $20 per barrel for the price of Iraqi oil (viz the 1990s average market price) and about $10 for the Persian Gulf differential oil rent.19

Let us further assume:
1. an 8% real discount rate;
2. a 3% annual inflation rate;
3. a 3% annual growth rate of addition to the proven reserves.

Scenario 1

1. The assumption of 2.5 million daily barrels: Given an annual production volume of 912.5 million barrels within 120 years and $10 of differential oil rent per barrel, the value of differential oil rents for 120 years is as follows:
912.5 million x 120 = 109.5 billion barrels
109.5 billion x $10 = $1.095 trillion

Given an 8% annual discount rate, a 3% annual rate inflation and a 3% annual growth rate of addition to proven reserves, we have applicable rate of discount of 8%. Thus, the present value of $1.095 trillion at 8% discount rate to be received in a lump sum after 120 years is $106.8 million.

2. The assumption of five million daily barrels: Given an annual production volume of 1,825 million barrels within 60 years and a $10 differential oil rent per barrel, the value of differential oil rents at the end of 60 years is as follows:
1,825 million x 60 = 109.5 billion barrels
109.5 billion x $10 = $1.095 trillion

Given an 8% annual discount rate, a 3% annual rate inflation and a 3% annual growth rate of addition to the proven reserves, we would have applicable rate of discount of 8%. Thus, present value of $1.095 trillion at 8% discount rate to be received in lump sum after 60 years is $10.81 billion.

Based upon the second, much larger figure of the two, the price tag for differential oil rents in Iraq is slightly less than $11 billion. Now, let us assume that the Iraqi oil reserves are underestimated: say, that they are five times the reported figures. Thus, ceteris paribus, one would arrive at $11 billion x 5 = $55 billion. Now, let us double our reasonable figure of $10 for differential rent per barrel. Again, we would never arrive at a figure much larger than $110 billion for the present value of all differential oil rents to be paid to the Iraqis. In other words, the ‘Iraqi oil price tag’ does not exceed $110 billion to be received in lump sum at the end of the period. This is indeed chump change, given the staggering costs associated with prosecuting the war and the unanticipated financial and incalculable human costs of the occupation of Iraq.

Scenario 2

Let us further assume that the proceeds from differential oil rents in Iraq will be received on an annual basis: say, for 55 years. In other words, assume that the Bush administration and its future successors are able to invent a pill that tranquillises not only the people of Iraq, but also the people of the entire world in order to calmly and comfortably steal the Iraqi oil rents for 55 years, till 2058. Now we need to calculate the summation of the present value of annuitised annual Iraqi oil rents for the period of 55 years. This scenario is more realistic, since the payments of oil rents are made on an annual basis. Again, for the sake of argument, we have chosen a much larger average figure of 5 million daily barrels, assuming a very optimistic production schedule:
5 million x 365 = 1.825 billion annual barrels
1.825 billion x $10 = $18.25 billion

The present value of $18.250 billion annual payment, to be paid for 55 consecutive years is equal to $224.8 billion.

According to the Nordhaus estimates, the direct and indirect costs of forceful occupation of Iraq would range somewhere between $120 billion and $1.6 trillion over a 10-year period.20 Should my estimated value of Iraqi oil warrant such a huge undertaking? As we can see, the reductionist view of ‘no blood for oil’ is hardly an answer to the complex objective forces that – despite the misleading intention of new US foreign policy – are underlying the upheavals of present global polity. Rather such misleading intention, and prior and subsequent actions on the part of the US government, are readily explicable by the underlying epochal forces that so irreversibly led to America’s loss of hegemony, on the one hand, and American refusal to accept it gracefully, on the other hand.

This is the main and real cause of the new world disorder rather than this ad hoc ‘oil scenario’ that the popular left harps on about.

Notes

  1. This article originally appeared in Union for Radical Political Economics Newsletter of spring 2004. See www.urpe.org/index.html
  2. See, for instance, a neo-conservative view by Kenneth Adelman: ‘Cakewalk in Iraq’, The Washington Post February 13 2002.
  3. For theoretical underpinnings see C Bina The economics of the oil crisis New York 1985.
  4. A Gramsci The prison notebooks New York1971, p161.
  5. See R Steel Pax Americana New York 1977.
  6. See GF Kennan Memoirs: 1925-1950 Boston 1967.
  7. The 1953 and 1954 CIA coups against Mossadegh and Arbenz are but the two prime examples.
  8. See MB Levin Political hysteria in America: the democratic capacity for repression New York 1971.
  9. One has to distinguish between epochal and temporal reflections of the Bush administration.
  10. The Wolfowitz-Berle neo-conservative project of permanent war, particularly for ‘redrawing’ the map of the Middle East, was formulated long before September 11 2001.
  11. White House The national security strategy of the United States of America September 17 2002, pp1,3.
  12. Here competition is defined in Marxian terms.
  13. J Schlesinger, interview: ‘Will war yield oil security?’ Challenge March-April 1991.
  14. MT Klare, ‘Oiling the wheels of war’ The Nation October 7 2002. As a corollary, the ‘necessity’ of oil exploration from Alaska’s wildlife can also be justified by such arguments.
  15. ‘Behind the invasion of Iraq’ Aspects of India’s economy No33-34, December 2002.
  16. See P Krugman, ‘Nothing for money’, March 14 2003: www.wwsprinceton.edu/~pkrugman/oildollar.html
  17. MT Klare, ‘Oiling the wheels of war’ The Nation October 7 2002.
  18. This is a rough exercise just for the sake of illustration and approximation of the order of magnitude of Iraqi oil rents. One or two points in the discount rate or inflation rate would not make a significant difference in the basic argument. The figure of $224.8 billion is for 55 consecutive years. If the occupation of Iraq is assumed to be for a 10-year period or so, then a fraction of this figure will be relevant, which in turn will be even much smaller in magnitude than the commonly estimated cost of US war and occupation of Iraq.
  19. See C Bina The economics of the oil crisis New York 1985.
  20. WD Nordhaus, ‘Iraq: the economic consequences of war’ New York Review of Books Vol 49 (19), December 5 2002.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Iran, war and oil – speaking tour with Cyrus Bina

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

Cyrus Bina, author of “The economics of the oil crisis”,  is undertaking a speaking tour of Britain next week with meetings in Manchester, Glasgow and London. All are welcome to attend and contribute to the discussion.

MANCHESTER: Tuesday November 24, 8pm:
‘Iran, oil and the working class’, meeting room 4, University of Manchester … Student Union, Oxford Road, Manchester M13. Organised by Hopi.

GLASGOW: Wednesday November 25, 5pm:
‘Post-election Iran: why did the left turn right?’, room 315, Adam Smith Building, Glasgow University, Bute Gardens, Great George Street, Glasgow G12. Organised by Critique.

LONDON: Sunday November 29, 4pm:
‘Is it the oil, stupid?’, University of London Union, Malet Street, WC1. Organised by CPGB.

Click here to read an article by Cyrus Bina, in which he argues that the reasons for war are far more complex: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/794/isittheoil.php

Cyrus Bina will also speaking at the General Annual Meeting of Hands Off the People of Iran on November 28 in London: http://hopoi.org/?p=639

Posted in HOPI blog | No Comments »

Do Not Deport Mehrshad Sadeghi to Iran!‏‏ He is 9 years old!

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Child M is Mehrshad Sadeghi from Gorton, Manchester. He is a 9 Year Old boy.

 

Mehrshad is a happy and successful boy from a Manchester school. He has lived with his family in Manchester for the last two years. He has many friends.

 

Mehrshad and his family are seeking asylum. They face persecution and imprisonment in Iran. The family are in serious danger on their return to Iran, so they have lodged appeals to the UK Border Agency, The Court of Appeal and The High Court.

 

Child M and his family – Ahmed Sadeghi (brother) and Farah Ghaemi (mother) are booked on the BMI flight to Tehran – BD931 at 6.30 this evening.

 

We urge you not to let them on this flight – they are forcibly being removed from this country and are being deported illegally. They do not want to be returned to Iran. The adults in the family face serious danger and no one knows what will happen to Mehrshad. He cannot stop his deportation from this country.

You can.

Thousands of people across the United Kingdom have supported their right to stay here. Details of their case have been published in major newspapers today.

 

We have high profile supporters some of these include; Micheal Rosen

                                                                                                 Caroline Lucas MP

                                                                                                 English PEN

                                                                                                 Baroness Afshar

                                                                                                 Bill Greenshields NUT President

                                                                          

We will encourage all our supporters to boycott BMI flights in the future if you let this family board the flight.

 

CHILD M CAMPAIGN

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in HOPI blog | 2 Comments »

پشتیبانی ازاقدام اعتراضی مشترک درمحکومیت اعدام ها درایران توسط "شورای فعالین دانشجویی چپ مستقل مقیم گوتنبورگ "دوستان سوئدی" حزب عدالت سوسیالیستی سوئد "

Friday, November 20th, 2009

پشتیبانی ازاقدام اعتراضی مشترک درمحکومیت اعدام ها درایران توسط “شورای فعالین دانشجویی چپ مستقل مقیم گوتنبورگ “دوستان سوئدی” حزب عدالت سوسیالیستی سوئد “

 شنبه 21 نوامبر2009 ، دربرنس پارکن – گوتنبرگ

رژیم جمهوری اسلامی وماشین سرکوب آن بعد ازاعدام احسان فتاحیان، علیرغم اعتراضات وسیع درسنندج وجای جای کشورونهادهای جهانی ،ماشین سرکوبش همچنان درراه است ودادگستری کل استان تهران، احکام اعدام پنج تن اززندانیان سیاسی را مورد تاکید قرارداده واحکام زندان برای 81 نفردیگررااعلام کرد. براین پایه حامد روحی نژاد- آرش رحمانی پور- محمد رضا علی زمانی- ناصرعبدالحسینی به اتهام همکاری با رادیو تندرووابستگی به انجمن پادشاهی ایران ورضا خادمی به اتهام عضویت درسازمان مجاهدین درخطراعدام قرارگرفته اند.

کانون همبستگی با کارگران ایران – گوتنبرگ، ضمن محکوم کردن دستگیری مبارزین جنبش اعتراضی و ضد استبدادی، فعالان کارگری ، صدور احکام زندان و اعدام  در مورد همه دستگیرشده گان ، قویا محکوم می کنیم، خواهان آزادی فوری و بی قید وشرط همه زندانیان سیاسی و لغو احکام اعدام می باشد .

درهمین راستا فعالان کانون از اقدام مشترک  : “شورای فعالین دانشجویی چپ مستقل مقیم گوتنبورگ” وبا همکاری “حزب عدالت سوسیالیستی سوئد”، درسازماندهی آکسیون اعتراضی روز شنبه 21 نوامبر درساعت 3 بعد ازظهررا مورد پشتیبانی خود قرارداده وایرانیان طرفدار آزادی و برابری را به شرکت هرچه فعالتر دراین آکسیون اعتراضی وبا شعار: “اعدام ها را متوقف کنید” ، درمحل برنس پارکن دعوت می نماییم .

هیئت مسئولین کانون همبستگی با کارگران ایران – گوتنبرگ (سوئد)

19 نوامبر 2009

Tags:
Posted in Iran News | No Comments »

Yassamine Mather: Workers organise against the regime

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Workers organise against the regime

first published in the Weekly Worker November 19 2009

More than 300 workers in the Abadan oil refinery gathered on Thursday November 12 to protest against non-payment of wages and bonuses, saying they had not been paid for more than three months. Hopi chair Yassamine Mather reports:

The refinery authorities associated with what remains of the state-owned Iran National Oil Company say the workers are employed by a contractor and they cannot do anything about their demands. The protest followed a strike by the whole workforce of 450 involved in the development of Bandar Abbas Oil refinery. This was their third walkout in less than three months and the strike is continuing. The Iranian government’s privatisation plans are notoriously corrupt and generally help empower and enrich the Islamic Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards). But in the oil industry it is different from elsewhere. Privatisation has been undertaken with the aim of dividing workers and hampering national negotiations over wages and conditions, in the knowledge that for oil workers deployed in various sectors of the industry, working for so many different contractors, it would be impossible to negotiate common terms and conditions.

Private ownership of some oil functions is still prohibited under the Iranian constitution, but the government has permitted buy-back contracts, allowing international oil companies to participate in exploration and development through an Iranian affiliate. The contractor receives a remuneration fee, usually an entitlement to oil or gas from the developed operation. Iran’s total refinery capacity in 2008 was about 1.5 million barrels per day (bbl/d), with its nine refineries operated by the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company. Iranian refineries are unable to keep pace with domestic demand, while the threat of sanctions and removal of fuel subsidies have created price rises and the fear of a shortage of refined fuel.

The current protests are very significant because the Islamic government, wary of the power of oil employees, has so far avoided confrontation with this section of the working class by making sure they receive regular payment and imposing very strict security measures in refineries, services to the oil industry and oil extraction fields.

Iran ranks among the world’s top three holders of both proven oil and natural gas reserves. It is Opec’s second largest producer and exporter after Saudi Arabia, and fourth largest exporter of crude oil globally. Natural gas accounts for half of Iran’s total domestic energy consumption, while the remaining half consists predominantly of oil. The continued exploration and production of the offshore South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf is a key part of the country’s energy sector development plan. Iran has nine oil refineries with a total capacity of 1.4 million bbl/d. They include Abadan, which was one of world’s largest when it was destroyed in 1980 in the Iraq-Iran war. It was also the refinery where the first political strike took place in the late 1970s. Meanwhile, gasoline demand is forecast to grow at around 11.4% per year.1

The Islamic government has not forgotten the significant role of oil workers in the events that led to the February uprising of 1979. In November 1978, a strike by 37,000 workers at Iran’s nationalised oil refineries initially reduced production from six million barrels per day to about 1.5 million. That strike not only cost the government about $60 million a day in oil revenue, but also suddenly raised the spectre of petroleum shortages in Japan, Israel, western Europe and, to a much lesser degree, in the US; all these countries to one extent or another depended at the time on Iranian crude. After a week of strikes and protests, some oil employees went back to work. But the strike played a crucial role in encouraging further militant action and boosted opposition to the regime. It was also significant in asserting the role of the working class in political struggles. The oil workers’ walkout climaxed two months of labour unrest that had spread to nearly every sector of the economy. Demands ranged from pay rises to compensate for spiralling inflation to political reforms, an end to martial law and the release of all remaining political prisoners. A strike of a million civil servants and government workers followed that of the oil workers.

There are many parallels between those strikes and the current unrest amongst oil employees. The present strikes follow weeks of political protests up and down the country. Also Iran’s economic situation is worse than anyone can remember – in addition to rocketing inflation, mass unemployment and systematic non-payment of wages, the new subsidies legislation, passed only a week ago, has already increased the price of basic goods. Everyone is predicting major price hikes.

Bread prices reached 1,000 tomans ($1) in Tehran this week. The newspaper Hemayat said that the two traditional breads, barbari and sangak, were being sold for 600 and 2,000 tomans respectively. The semi-official news agency, ILNA, predicts that both a litre of milk and a kilogram of sugar will soon reach 1,000 tomans. The estimated average wage is around $223 a month, and many workers are not paid for months at a time, while the employer can use the threat of job losses to get away with this form of systematic super-exploitation. In recent statements Iranian workers have once more called for international solidarity and support for their demands – and they are adamant that such support must be from fellow workers. Over the last few years labour activists inside Iran have sometimes been innocent victims of the foolish mistakes of sections of the Iranian ‘left’ that have collaborated with social-imperialist political groups and pro-imperialist, rightwing trade unions.

Those who maintain the principled position of opposing war and sanctions have a duty to show genuine international solidarity with Iranian workers. We can do so by supporting their immediate demands. One of the major organisations trying to unite the current nationwide struggles, the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations, has issued a number of statements regarding recent events, as well as a list of basic demands. Sections of that statement can be summed up as follows:

  • The Iranian working class is struggling against the entire capitalist system (all factions of the regime). There is a need to safeguard the independence of the working class in the class struggle. Our movement uses the strength of its organised and conscious forces against political power in its totality; that is why workers must unmask ruthlessly the reformist capitalist faction, a faction that misleads workers by creating the illusion of reform within the system.
  • The unity of the working masses in the struggle against capitalism and the need for promoting its material and moral ability to struggle for the abolition of the wage-slavery system requires that this class initiates its organised and conscious struggle from basic demands as described in the Charter of the Fundamental Demands of the Working Class of Iran.
  • The main condition for the success of these efforts, including the takeover of factories, the general strike or any struggle for the abolition of capitalist social relations and seizing political power, is the existence of anti-capitalist councils of the working class.
  • There must be a struggle against unemployment caused by factory closures, against various forms of intensification of exploitation in the workplace. Proposed tactics include taking over closed down factories or those that are on the brink of closing down in the first instance, and strikes in the second instance.

“Based on the above points,” the statement reads, “we call upon all anti-capitalist activists of the working class movement to unite around the following points” for the organisation of the class against capitalism:

  • Agreement on the basic demands of the working class.
  • Efforts to form anti-capitalist councils of the working class within workplaces and neighbourhoods.
  • Unified planning for launching strikes in all centres of work and centres of production.
  • Preparations for the takeover of factories that have closed down or those on the verge of closing down.
  • Participation within the current movement, with the aim of forming an independent line for the realisation of the basic demands of the working class.

“Workers, let’s get organised against capital!” concludes the call from the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations.

We in Hands Off the People of Iran must continue our efforts in support of Iranian workers, not just as an act of international solidarity, but as an integral part of our international efforts to confront the economic crisis. Excellent work has been done in 2009, with funds raised by the Fire Brigades Union, Unite, Unison and the RMT, and the efforts of the Labour Representation Committee and Hopi cricket teams. But we must do a lot more in 2010.

Posted in HOPI blog | No Comments »

Yassamine Mather: Workers gain new courage

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Workers fight back

Workers fight back

Iranian demonstrations have given a real boost to working class opponents of the regime, writes Yassamine Mather

Every year November 4, the anniversary of the 1979 take-over of the US embassy in Tehran, is marked in Iran with a state-organised demonstration outside the building that used to house the American ambassador and his staff. On that date 30 years ago militant Islamic students stormed the embassy and took 71 hostages. Nineteen were released within weeks, but the remaining 52 were held for 444 days.

The ceremony commemorating the 30th anniversary of the ‘US hostage crisis’ was no different from recent years: a lacklustre ritual addressed by an insignificant minister. However, no-one in Iran will ever forget November 4 2009. It was the day when illegal demonstrations in at least six separate locations in Tehran and 20 cities and university campuses throughout the country overshadowed the state-organised event. As the national broadcasting service was showing live pictures of the gathering outside the former US embassy, shouts of “Death to the dictator” from protesters on neighbouring streets and squares were so loud that it was difficult to hear the minister’s speech. In Tehran the six locations were Enghelab Square, Ferdowsi, Haft Tir, Enghelab Square, Vali Asr and Vanak Square.

Revolutionary guards had issued stern warnings that they would not tolerate any protest demonstrations, and the night before dozens of political activists were arrested. On the morning of November 4 itself, government offices closed their doors at around 10am to stop employees leaving their workplace to join the protests. The ministry of the interior deployed special units of anti-riot police, many on motorbikes, as well as the religious bassij militia, to block main roads, intimidate potential demonstrators and attack any gathering. Yet despite all these measure, by all accounts – including admissions in the pro-Ahmadinejad press – tens of thousands of Iranians joined the protests against the regime.

Highly significant was the absence of any slogans regarding the rigged elections. Four months and 22 days after the June 2009 presidential poll, demonstrators in Iran have clearly moved on. Even the BBC Persian Service, that staunch defender of the ‘green movement’, had to admit in its broadcasts and analyses what most of the left has been saying for some time: as a result of the impasse within the factions of the Islamic regime the protests are no longer about the results of the presidential elections. Protesters are now challenging the very existence of that regime. ‘Reformist’ leaders are tailing the masses.1

The advice of their ‘leaders’ – most of whom, with the exception of presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, did not even dare show their face at the demonstrations – was totally ignored. Fellow ‘reformist’ candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi had spent the previous 10 days warning everyone against “radical” slogans that would only “benefit the enemy”. Yet demonstrators did the exact opposite.

Even the bourgeois media had to admit that the radicalisation of the demonstrations has marked a new phase in the life of the opposition. The main slogans that dominated the day were directed at the supreme leader himself: “Our guardian is a murderer [the supreme leader’s official religious title is ‘guardian of the nation’]. His rule is null and void” (Vali ma ghateleh velayatesh bateleh), plus the usual “Death to Khamenei, death to the Islamic republic”.

The crowds were also at odds with Moussavi over the nuclear issue. In late October he and Karroubi met to discuss the recent US-EU offer to Iran, and made it clear that they considered Ahmadinejad’s response to be a sell-out. Moussavi was quoted by his own website Kalameh as saying: “If the promises given are realised then the hard work of thousands of scientists would be ruined.” Yet for the first time in many years, it looked like the nationalist defenders of a nuclear Iran had no supporters amongst the protesters, whose slogans were very clear: “We don’t want reactors, we don’t want the atomic bomb.”

A week earlier, Moussavi, after a lot of dithering, had called on his supporters to back the November 4 demonstrations, yet on the day he failed to show up at any of the protests. His supporters claimed he was prevented from leaving a cultural centre by the security forces, but witnesses deny this. For all his faults, Karroubi, the 70-year-old cleric, showed more courage. He was prepared to join the demonstrations, even though one of his bodyguards was badly injured and ended up in hospital.

In another qualitative development angry demonstrators tore down posters of Khamenei and trampled all over them in what were unprecedented scenes. The man who is supposed to be god’s representative on earth (for Shia Muslims) was called a murderer and his image defiled by demonstrators wiping their feet on his posters.

Most of all, though, November 4 will be remembered as the day Iranians realised their strength and found the courage to stand up to the regime’s supporters and security forces. A number of bloggers have remarked on how government supporters leaving the official gathering hid memorabilia and photos of the supreme leader that had been dished out at that event when they saw the huge number of protesters in neighbouring streets.

There were many reports and films of the bassij and militia attacking protesters, especially women. However, there were also many incidents where demonstrators confronted those forces and actually got the better of them. In some incidents old women defended young protesters and shamed the security forces into retreating.

Some protesters have also taken up a new chant: “Obama, Obama – either you’re with them or you’re with us.” On the face of it, this does not sound like the most radical of slogans. However, this is a country obsessed with conspiracy theories regarding foreign interference and it was the first time since 1979 that Iranians have directed a slogan at the leader of the hegemon capitalist power in the face of such conspiracy theories. It should be noted that since Irangate2 no-one in Iran takes slogans like “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” shouted at official demonstrations seriously.

A number of foreign reporters were detained, most of whom have now been released, together with an Iranian journalist working for Agence France Presse. The stupid leaders of the regime had thought that by making such arrests they would stop the world hearing about the protests, but the reality is that now Iran has millions of reporters, with their text messages, emails and video footage captured on mobile phones. Perhaps the regime will consider banning all electronic equipment in their desperation to stop the ‘wrong’ news spreading.

The demonstrations have given a real boost to working class opponents of the regime. For the first time in many years they are finding allies in their struggle against the Islamic government. Sections of the left, including Rahe Kargar, have been talking of setting up neighbourhood resistance committees and clearly, given the vicious attacks by security forces on the growing opposition, such committees are necessary. For the first time in many years Iranians are discussing the need for the masses to be armed to confront the state security forces, while maintaining their opposition to ‘militarist’ tactics.

But the regime will not give up easily. More than 200 people were arrested in Tehran and the provinces on or around November 4, while a number of labour activists from the Haft Tapeh sugar cane company have been sent to prison for organising strikes. There are unconfirmed reports that despite many efforts to save the life of Kurdish leader Ehsan Fattahian, he was executed on November 11 in Sanandaj Central Prison. Ehsan’s 10-year prison sentence for membership of an illegal Kurdish organisation was recently changed to execution for no apparent reason.

Hundreds of protesters remain in prison and we must do all we can to support and defend them. Let us step up our solidarity with the working class and democratic opposition.

Notes
  1. See BBC Newsnight report, including interview with BBC Persian Service presenter: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPgi2LUNdqI
  2. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair for a summary of the ‘Iran Contra affair’, also known as ‘Irangate’.
From Weekly Worker 793

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Iran News | No Comments »

Abadan oil refinery workers protest against unpaid wages!

Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Oil workers fight back

Oil workers fight back

After their wages and bonuses went unpaid a group of Abadan oil refinery workers began a protest on Wednesday November 11. Around 300 workers have not been paid for more than three months.

Tehran Emrooz daily reported that when the workers protested outside the Abadan oil refinery on November 12 the “Abadan oil refinery officials told the workers that as they are working in the third phase of the refinery then they are working for a private contractor and their wages have nothing to do with the refinery.”

This protest is highly significant in that oil industry workers have had no major protests for a number of years. They are paid regularly, unlike most workers in Iran, and their work environment is very heavily policed and controlled.

The Abadan oil refinery in the southern Khuzestan province is over 95 years old and was the biggest refining facility in the world for many decades. It is one of the oldest and most important centres of the Iranian workers’ movement.

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
13 November 2009.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Iran News | No Comments »

Ehsan Fattahian murdered by the Islamic Republic

Saturday, November 14th, 2009
Ehsan Fattahian partisan

Ehsan Fattahian partisan

The Iranian authorities have reportedly executed a Kurdish militant whom they charged with being an “enemy of God”. Ehsan Fattahian, 27, was hanged yesterday in the western city of Sanandaj, according to Ali Akbar Gharoussi, head of the judiciary in Kurdistan province.

Ehsan Fattahian’s executioners ignored pleas from international human rights organisations, and petitions signed by many thousands of people, appealing against the death sentence.

Ehsan had admitted membership of the banned Kurdish movement Komeleh, which has a long history of fighting for Kurdish rights and self-determination. He denied involvement in killings, and said he was tortured for three months. His initial 10-year jail sentence was changed to death by a higher court.

Ezzatollah Fattahian, the defendant’s father, told Human Rights Watch that prison officials had prevented the family from visiting his son in prison for the past three months.

http://www.mideastyouth.com/2009/11/11/ehsan-fattahian-was-hanged-this-morning-in-iran/

Amnesty International, which appealed on Tuesday for Ehsan Fattahian’s life to be spared, has warned that two other Iranian Kurdish men are at risk of execution, and at leastleast 10 other men and one woman are believed to be on death row in connection with membership of and activities in support of proscribed Kurdish organizations.

Oppositionists say the Iranian regime is using incidents like last month’s explosion in Baluchistan, in which 41 people including senior Revolutionary Guard officers were killed, to come down hard on minorities. A Baluchi group called Jundullah claimed responsibility for the attack. The regime accused US, British and Israeli intelligence agencies of supporting separatists.

“The Iranian regime is trying to intimidate ethnic minorities from joining the Green Wave,” Komeleh leader Abdullah Mohtadi told al-Arabiyya TV, referring to the movement led by Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to have beaten Ahmadinejad in the elections. “One of the methods to deter people is stricter sentencing in ethnic provinces such as Kurdistan, Baluchestan and Ahwaz.”

The Komaleh, and Kurdish aspirations, go back much further than the present Iranian regime and its troubles at home or abroad. Like neighbouring Iraq and Turkey, Iran has a chunk of Kurdish lands, with around four million Kurdish people. Sanandaj, the capital of Iran- Kurdistan province, is in an area where Kurdish guerrillas have clashed with Iranian security forces. In September there were a number of attacks, often targetting religious leaders and judges. No group claimed responsibility. The authorities variously blamed a Kurdish Independent Life Party and “hard-line Sunni fundamentalists” linked with outside powers. But Komaleh is a secular organisation, which some even see as Marxist.

Amnesty International condemned the September killings, but opposed the use of the death penalty against political prisoners. Amnesty lists Iran as the world’s second most prolific executioner in 2008 after China, and says it put to death at least 346 people last year.

Ehsan Fattahian was detained on 20 July 2008 and said in a letter smuggled from prison that he was regularly beaten in detention. Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj sentenced him to ten years imprisonment, to be served in exile, after a trial in which he was denied access to a lawyer. Both Ehsan and the prosecutor appealed this verdict, and in January this year the Appeal Court overturned the first sentence. Instead he was sentenced to death for “emnity to God”. He said the new sentence was passed because he refused to confess, or to renounce his beliefs.

Here are the concluding paragraphs of Ehsan Fattahian’s letter from the condemned cell:
“… shortly before my sentence was changed to the death sentence, I was taken from Sanandaj prison to the Intelligence Ministry’s detention center, where I was asked to make a false confession on camera, show remorse for the actions I had not committed and reject my beliefs. I did not give in to their illegitimate demands, so I was told that my prison sentence would be changed to the death sentence. They were fast to keep their promise and prove to me how courts always concede to the demands of intelligence and non-judicial authorities. How can one criticize the courts then?

All judges take an oath to remain impartial at all times and in all cases, to rule according to the law and nothing but the law. How many of the judges of this country can say that they have not broken their oath and have remained fair and impartial? In my opinion the number is countable with the fingers on my hand. When the entire justice system in Iran orders arrests, trials, imprisonments and death sentences with the simple hand gesture of an uneducated interrogator, what is to be expected from a few minor judges in a province that has always been discriminated against? Yes, in my view, it is the foundation of the house which is in ruins.

Last time I met in prison with the prosecutor who had issued the initial indictment, he admitted that the ruling was illegal. Yet, for the second time, it has been ruled that my execution should be carried out. It goes without saying that the insistence to carry out the execution at any cost is a result of pressures exercised by political and intelligence groups outside the Judiciary. People who are part of these groups look at the question of life and death of a prisoner only based on their own political and financial interests. They cannot see anything but their own illegitimate objectives, even when it is the question of a person’s right to life – the most basic of all human rights. How pointless is it to expect them to respect international treaties when they don’t even respect their own laws?

Last word: if the rulers and oppressors think that, with my death, the Kurdish question will go away, they are wrong. My death and the deaths of thousands of others like me will not cure the pain; they will only add to the flames of this fire. There is no doubt that every death is the beginning of a new life.

 

Ehsan Fattahian,

Sanandaj Central Prison

from Random Pottins

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Iran News | No Comments »

کنفرانس سالانه کارزار دستها از مردم ایران کوتاه

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

کنفرانس سالانه کارزار دستها از مردم ایران کوتاه
۲۸ نوامبر ۲۰۰۹
۱۰ صبح تا ۶ بعداز ظهر
مهلت برای ارسال قطعنامه ۲۰ نوامبر
دستور جلسه
ساعت ۱۰ نام نویسی
ساعت ۱۱-۱۱.۳۰
گزارش فعالیت‌های سال گذشته – مارک فیشرمنشی کارزار دستها از مردم ایران
ساعت۱۱.۳۰-۱۳
نیاز امپریالیسم به ادامه درگیری و اوضاع سیاسی در منطقه خاور میانه
پروفسور موشه مخور – استاد کینگز کالج دانشگاه لندن ، مایک مکنر استاد دانشگاه آکسفورد و مولف کتاب “استراتژی انقلابی”
ساعت ۱۳-۱۴ نهار
ساعت ۱۴-۱۵.۳۰
سخنرانی پروفسور سیروس بینا نویسنده کتاب : سرمایه داری مدرن و ایدئولوژی اسلامی در ایران، استاد دانشگاه مینسوتا- تیتر دقیق سخنرانی ایشان بعد اعلام میشود
ساعت ۱۶-۱۷.۳۰
مبارزات کارگران ایران – یاسمین میزر – دانشگاه گلاسگو و دبیر اول کارزار دستها از مردم ایران کوتاه
برای رزرو جا با ایمیل زیر تماس بگیرید

email:office@hopoi.info

http://www.hopoi.org

Somers Town Community Centre, 150 Ossulston Street,
London NW1 1EE (near Euston station)

Posted in HOPI blog | No Comments »

« Older Entries