But what’s all this about democracy and peace!

The election in Iraq and the agreement in Palestine are announcemnents of new chapters in the “infinite war” of Bush and Berlusconi!

The election in Iraq can summed up in one word: a farce.

Taking place under the pointed rifles of the occupying forces, the voting did not and will not lead to “peace and democracy”, but will simply help Western imperialism to prepare new and more terrifying acts of aggression against the exploted peoples of the whole Middle East. The same goes for Israel’s policy of making apparent concessions to the Palestinians in Gaza, by means of which the government in Tel Aviv (supported by all of the West) aims to strangle the Intifada and structure an order that will sanction the final negation of the social and national aspirations of the Palestinian working masses.

Using the vote in Iraq, the USA and its allies (with Italy in the forefront) intend to legitimise a new puppet government in Baghdad. They want the property-owning classes and local exploiters (including the Sciites) to play a more decisive role as guard dogs against the Iraqi people and its courageous resistance. They want all that so that they can disengage some of their troops from Iraq in order to be able to launch in a new war of pillage against Iran and all of the peoples in the Muslim world. This time, with the open collaboration of France, as can be seen from the smiles exchanged by Chirac and Condoleeza Rice.

The Sccite property owners in Iraq do not like the Western occupation, but they are even more afraid of the struggle of the exploited against it because they fear that such a struggle will not only cause difficulties for the occupation, but also threaten their own privileges. That is why, in exchange for a plate of lentils, they have come to terms with the American and Italian invaders.

In order to emerge from the inferno of the occupation, the Iraqi working masses (both those who went to vote as a sign of their hostility to the occupying forces, and those who boycotted the polls for the same reason) are called upon to continue, relaunch and radicalise their heroic struggle against the invading troops and the local exploiting classes. They are called upon to avoid any contraposition between the exploited different religious confessions and, on the contrary, to resume and strengthen the process of uniting oppressed Sciites, Sunnites and Kurds that was started in the spring of 2004. They are called upon to overcome together what has so far been the greatest limitation of the popular resistance: the absence of an autonomous organisation of the workers and all of the oppressed that is capable of leading the fight against the invading troops by binding it to a programme in favour of the radical political, economic and social emancipation of the exploited throughout the Middle East.

We international communists of the OCI unconditionally support the struggle of the Iraqi and Palestinian peoples and will fight with determination until the workers in Italy and the West start to join battle against our imperialist governments at the side of the resistance of the oppressed Arabic and Islamic masses, and those throughout the Southern world. 

Organizzazione Comunista Internazionalista