Cairo Conference backs Jan. 18 protests
Calls for solidarity with Iraq and Palestine
By Sara Flounders
An international conference of over 400 representatives of
popular organizations from 20 countries met in Cairo, Egypt,
from Dec. 18-19 and resolved to take action in solidarity with
the people of Iraq against threatened U.S. aggression and in
solidarity with the Pales tinian movement for
self-determination.
The conference, called the Inter national Campaign Against
U.S. Aggres sion on Iraq (ICAA), created a steering committee
whose first order of business is to mobilize worldwide for mass
demonstrations against U.S. war plans on Jan. 18.
This action is simultaneous with national anti-war
demonstrations already underway in the United States in
Washington and San Francisco and with many other actions
already scheduled in at least 12 countries.
The committee will also promote actions for Feb. 15, 2003, a
day chosen for demonstrations in Europe.
The Cairo Conference is one of a number of international
gatherings and massive mobilizations in many parts of the
world. What makes it so important is that it took place in the
center of the Arab world in the face of Egyptian government
efforts to stop it. It took place in a region where powerful
mass movements in the last century shook off colonial bonds,
and where just last year millions of people marching in the
streets for Palestine forced the Pentagon to put its war plans
for Iraq on hold.
U.S. plans for aggression are creating waves of outrage and
opposition in every corner of the world. Because of advances in
mass communication, those under attack everywhere are now able
to see the broader picture of a global empire. They can more
easily identify with others who share their conditions of life.
This new technology lays a stronger basis for solidarity and
common action.
The pervasive sentiment at the conference was that far more
than Iraq is under attack, and that Washington has explicitly
targeted every country attempting an independent course. All
the speakers predicted that a U.S. aggressive war is imminent,
even though Iraq has allowed "unconditional inspections" by the
UN.
Some speakers said that the Bush administration wants to
make an example of Iraq to further terrify the world into
compliance and to divert attention from a collapsing global
economy. Many described the coming war as a war for oil. Some
connected it to the struggle for unfettered control of global
markets.
The continuations committee of the conference undertook the
challenge of mobilizing in Egypt on Jan. 18. Its first action
immediately followed the conference on Dec. 20, when it
mobilized 1,000 people for a public protest of U.S. war plans,
despite the threatening presence of hundreds of Cairo
police.
Until the last minute the Egyptian government tried to stop
the conference from taking place. After political forces
mobilized, the regime backtracked and permitted the assembly.
Then the Sheraton corporation, part of a U.S.-owned hotel
chain, canceled contracted space at two of its hotels in an
effort to sabotage the conference. The conference was finally
moved to the Conrad Hotel. The general feeling was that the
U.S. State Department was behind efforts to stop this
international anti-war gathering.
The challenge of calling the conference and confronting the
efforts to halt it was undertaken by the Egyptian Popular
Campaign to Confront U.S. Aggression, a broad coalition
including political leaders identified with the movement
started by the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and also both
secular left and Islamic forces.
Among the prestigious world figures attending the conference
were Ahmed Ben Bella, leader of Algeria's struggle for
independence from France and first president of Algeria; Saad
K. Hammoundy, Iraq's ambassador to the Arab League; former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Denis Halliday of Ireland, who
was the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General heading the
Oil-for-Food program in Iraq up through 1998; UN director of
the Oil-for-Food program Dr. Hans Von Sponeck, and George
Galloway, Labor member of Parliament in Britain. The
86-year-old Ben Bella presided over the conference.
Coordinators of anti-war groups attending included John Rees
of the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, Christof Agiton of
Attac in France, along with delegates from Cuba, Canada,
Russia, Germany, Italy and more than 50 distinguished guests
from Arab countries. The U.S. delegation included Sara
Flounders of the International Action Center, Elias Rashmawi
and Fadia Rafeedi of the Free Palestine Alliance and the ANSWER
Coalition, Peter Phillips of Project Censored and Gary
Leupp.
Ben Bella sets direction
President Ben Bella gave direction to the conference,
predicting that a U.S. attack on Iraq, should it take place,
would be only the first of a succession of wars by the U.S
against Arab and other lands of the Middle East. He was firm in
wanting to mobilize the people of all Arab lands against U.S.
plans to dominate the world, and called for a demonstration of
2 million.
Ben Bella also said it was up to the people of the United
States to fight against its policies and that the struggle
within the U.S. was vital.
Ramsey Clark, the only former high-ranking U.S. official to
publicly oppose Washington's military adventures all over the
world, said that "an attack on Iraq is obviously unlawful, it
is criminal. Through years of sanctions, the U.S. is already
committing genocide against Iraq... Another strike now by the
U.S. builds toward world domination and it has to be stopped.
It is an urgent issue because it can happen in the next three
months, because the Pentagon will want to move before the
summer heat sets in."
George Galloway mocked Washing ton's charge that Iraq holds
weapons of mass destruction. "Every place visited by the
inspectors so far has been completely empty," he said, calling
Great Britain and the U.S. "imperial powers" who want to decide
on "new kings, new countries, and new slave centers" in the
oil-rich Middle East.
Denis Halliday, who resigned in 1998 to protest the effect
of sanctions against Baghdad, said that Washington has accused
Baghdad of "material breaches" of the new UN resolution because
it "plans to undermine the work of inspections and the work of
the Iraqi government. The United States doesn't want a peaceful
solution. They want an excuse to go to war, to conquer Iraq and
control its oil," Halliday said.
Hans Von Sponeck, who also resigned his UN post in protest,
called the 150-percent increase in infant mortality in Iraq
since 1990 "genocide by the United Nations."
Ashraf el-Bayoumi, an Egyptian professor and one of the
conference organizers, said Washington was preparing for
"launching an attack on Iraq, occupying Iraq, usurping its
natural resources, oil and otherwise, in order to continue
being the solo superpower in the world."
Bush's problem
Sara Flounders said that Bush's big problem is the growing
opposition to the war inside the United States, referring to
the demonstrations of hundreds of thousands ANSWER called on
Oct. 26 and its plans for Jan. 18, 2003. "The one power that
the Pentagon today fears is the arousing anger of the millions
of people, whose power is explosive when they are organized and
mobilized. This is the one force that can stay the hand of the
Pentagon," she said.
Elias Rashmawi, a Palestinian Amer ican, focused on the need
for a strong anti-war mobilization from the U.S. He stressed
that there is now the potential to build a movement that can
effectively fight against U.S. war plans. "Our international
coordination in mobilizing for January 18 will strengthen
solidarity and will send a signal to the Bush administration
that the world is united against the continuation of conquest
and war."
John Rees referred to both the Sept. 28 demonstration of
400,000 in London against the war, and the almost million
people who gathered in Florence, Italy, to demonstrate on Nov.
9 as part of the European Social Forum's anti-globalization
actions.
Saad K. Hammoundy from Iraq connected U.S. military
aggression with the drive to impose capitalist globalization on
the world. With U.S. capital invested around the world, it
requires its military to secure its profits. Hammoundy drew
attention to the U.S. seizure of Iraq's weapons declaration
from the United Nations, saying Washington altered the
declaration to create an excuse for an invasion.
Mohamed Asad Kanaana, secretary general of the Abnaal
El-Balad, People of the Homeland Movement within 1949
Palestine, described this as one of the most critical periods
facing the Arab nation in its modern history. The U.S. is
repartitioning the world, he said. Israel has decided that
direct control--the return of colonialism--is the assured
method to guard its interests. But the unipolar world of U.S.
imperialism is not the destiny of humanity. People's movements
will innovate new forms of struggle to confront imperialist
arrogance.
Cairo Declaration
The Cairo Declaration issued by this meeting declares: "We,
the participants, reaffirm our resolve to stand in solidarity
with the people of Iraq and Palestine, recognizing that war and
aggression against them is but part of a U.S. project of global
domination and subjugation. Solidarity with Iraq and Palestine
is integral to the internationalist struggle against
neo-liberal globalization. The Cairo meeting is not an isolated
event, but an extension of a protracted international struggle
against imperialism, from Seattle and Genoa to Lisbon and
Florence, to Cordoba and Cairo."
The statement goes on to "declare our total opposition to
war on Iraq and our resolve to continue the struggle against
U.S. policies of global domination. We strongly believe in the
urgency of mobilizing against these policies."
It condemns the "U.S. military presence on Arab land" and
calls for "pressuring the Arab governments that allow U.S.
military bases on their territory to close them down, and not
to provide air, naval, or land facilities."
There was great interest at the Cairo Conference in the
potential of the new, young anti-war movement growing within
the United States, where a movement of hundreds of thousands of
people has been taking to the streets in organized opposition
even before the war starts.
Solidarity built at gatherings like the Cairo Conference is
a force that can bring millions of people into the streets. In
the face of a criminal aggression, the people of the world are
not powerless. The same explosive power that has reshaped
history, brought down empires and ended past colonial
domination is the power that can mobilize to confront U.S.
imperialism.
Reprinted from the Jan. 9, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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