The Iraqi resistance convention of Florence, the situation in Iraq and the support to the cause of the Iraqi people
“Resist today to exist tomorrow. Reasons and horizons of the support to the struggle of the Iraqi people for liberty and self-determination”. This was the topic of the national convention which took place on November 27 in Florence, Italy. The gathering was dedicated to the city of martyrs, Falluja, and the 80.000 Iraqi prisoners held by the occupation forces. Many of those are desaparecidos which means that the US army does not give any notice on them. This is also the case for Abduljabbar al-Kubaysi, secretary-general of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance.
The criminal aggression on the city of Falluja by the US and their Iraqi henchmen seems to have resulted in a massacre also in Italy. If in Falluja tens of thousands of civilians were killed, in Italy the killing affected consciousness, reason and politics.
Falluja is a new climax in the row of exterminations Anglo-American imperialism is to be held liable for. We are faced with a new Dresden, an Iraqi Hiroshima, perpetrated not only to destroy the resistance, but also to terrorise an annihilate the Iraqi people and to deter people form resisting all over the world.
While in Iraq the aim of the terrorist troika of Bush-Blair-Berlusconi miserably failed, in the Western fortresses it had devastating effects, especially in Italy. There were no pacifists on the streets protesting the killing of Iraqi children, no one contested the ongoing torture and the demonstrations against the genocidal war have been virtually fading away.
One of the tasks of the convention was to break this asphyxiating silence about the occupation of Iraq and the accompanying crimes against humanity.
Preceded over by Alessia Monteverdi following people addressed the meeting: Sammi Alaà , Giovanni Bacciardi, Aldo Bernardini, Luigi Cortesi, Roberto Gabriele, Ugo Giannangeli, Alessandra Kersevan, Willi Langthaler, Alessandro Leoni, Miguel Martinez, Roberto Massari, Moreno Pasquinelli, Costanzo Preve e Pietro Vangeli. Three of the scheduled orators, Andrea Catone, Domenico Losurdo and Giancarlo Paciello were absent for force majeur. They conveyed their statements. The meeting was closed by the spokesman of the Free Iraq Committees Leonardo Mazzei. The respective intervention will be published in a booklet soon available.
Following only some aspects of the keynote address of Sammi Alaa, communist militant of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance. Alaa underlined that there are three fundamental aims of the resistance: a) throw out the occupants, b) national independence, c) democracy within a unified state.
For the resistance not only all the institutions created by the occupants are regarded as illegitimate, but also the fraudulent and faked elections scheduled for January 30.
Referring to the European left (including some communist denominations) Alaa attacked the widespread reluctance to support the resistance and denounced this refraining as an absorption into capitalism and imperialism.
The congress closed outlining the central activities of the campaign in support of the Iraqi resistance:
1) Prisoners: A campaign to denounce the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the occupation armies including the question of the prisoners and the disappeared is necessary. Reality should be poised in contrast to the US lie of bringing democracy.
2) Elections: A denunciation of the faked elections is indispensable also in Italy and Europe. Their anti-democratic character and their functionality for the occupation must be exposed.
3) European conference: In order to prepare a broad and including co-ordination of the forces in support of the Iraqi resistance we will organise a preparatory meeting preliminarily scheduled for January 16 in Germany. The immediate aim of the meeting is to prepare an European-wide congress in support of the Iraqi resistance.
4) Meetings with the Iraqi resistance: The apparent success of the current tour of Sammi Alaa throughout Italy indicates a grown interest in and an increased support for the Iraqi resistance. We will therefore continue to promote such meetings and gatherings with representatives of the Iraqi resistance.
Eventually, the debates at the convention indicated the necessity to find forms to organise the opposition to the American empire and its pre-emptive and permanent war also on a mass level, which we believe to be indispensable to give continuity and prospective to the movement in support of the Iraqi resistance – which is today the first line of the struggle.
Committees Free Iraq
November 29, 2004
See photos of the convention:
www.iraqlibero.at/pag/resoggi.htm
