VOICES NEWSLETTER # 43 (October / November 2005)

Download a PDF version of the newsletter

Negotiations are possible
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Sunni leaders close to the “nationalist” core of the insurgency ‘have reached tacit consensus over the broad outline of an interim program to reduce the violence, stabilise the country and thus enable the US-led coalition troops to begin a gradual withdrawal’ (21 Aug). Its basic steps include pulling US troops out of urban areas, the release of prisoners in US military custody and ‘[n]egotiations with the “resistance” … mean[ing] Iraqi fighters who attack only US and Iraqi troops.’

Some form of negotiated settlement is probably inevitable, at least in the long-term. ‘The Shia and the Kurds … are not going to lose a civil war if it comes. But neither are they in a position to force their will on the five-million-strong Sunni community’ (long-time Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn, Independent on Sunday, 18 Sept).

US ‘digging in’
However, such a scenario also looks highly unlikely without a radical change in US policy. Indeed, the US is currently digging in for the long-haul and what ‘many believe … [to be] the closest thing the Bush administration has to an actual road map’ envisages the US remaining in Iraq for at least a decade, spending hundreds of billions of dollars and taking heavier military casualties (Sunday Times, 4 Sept).

Fortunately, those of us here in the UK are in a position to exert major pressure. Indeed, by forcing a rapid withdrawal of UK forces we could have a huge impact on US public opinion – significant parts of which have already begun to turn against the war – and make the continuation of the occupation much more difficult, politically and militarily.

51% want withdrawal
Recent events in Basra – in which British forces reportedly killed at least 5 civilians whilst storming a police station (Independent, 22 Sept) – have once more exploded the myth of Iraqi “sovereignty” and ‘reveal[ed] that the picture the British public has been allowed to gain of our occupation of southern Iraq – one of relative tranquillity and co-operation compared to the bloody mayhem further north – is at best misleading [and] at worst deliberately distorted’ (IoS, 25 Sept).

According to one recent poll ‘a majority of [UK] voters, 51%, want the government to withdraw troops from Iraq regardless of the situation in the country’ with only 12% ‘shar[ing] Mr Blair’s belief that British troops are actually helping to improve the security situation’ (Guardian, 26 Sept).

Blair: no withdrawal
Yet current UK plans for ‘military disengagement’ from Iraq are contingent on ‘key security, stability and political targets be[ing] reached’ and envisage British troops remaining there for at least another year (Observer, 25 Sept), even as ‘up to 4,000 British troops are to be sent to Afghanistan’ (Telegraph, 1 Oct).

Bulgaria recently announced that it would withdraw its 370 troops from Iraq, Italy withdrew 300 troops in Aug and ‘Poland’s 2,400 strong force will go soon, as will Ukraine’s’ (Guardian, 3 Sept). The time is long overdue for the anti-war movement here to harness public opinion and force the UK to follow them.

Tal Afar
“It doesn’t matter how many we kill, they’ll always keep coming back. They’ve got cousins, brothers. They have an endless supply” 19-year-old US soldier in Tal Afar during the first major US assault on the city, New York Times, 10 Sept 2004.

mid-July: Three quarters of the 20,000 residents of Rawah on the Euphrates flee following the arrival of the US Army (LA Times, 1 Aug).

5 August: ‘Marines and Iraqi soldiers [encircle] Haqlaniya…and beg[in] to move in ... str[iking] simultaneously in Haditha and Barwana’ (NYT, 6 Aug). One Haditha resident described the bombs as falling ‘like heavy rain’, claiming that he later ‘saw the marines killing two unarmed inhabitants ...In our area [alone] the marines killed five people, all of them unarmed and had nothing to do with the insurgents’ (Azzaman.com, 22 Aug).

30 Aug: officials from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, citing reports from residents, state that airstrikes in and around the border area of Husayba, ‘killed more than 40 civilians, mostly members of an extended family who had sought shelter from the bombings’ (IHT, 31 Aug). Residents of Husayba and nearby Karabilah (which was also hit) claim US warplanes ‘attacked rescuers attempting to extract survivors from the debris’ (LA Times, 31 Aug).

6 Sept: Marine warplanes bomb two bridges near Karabilah (AP, 7 Sept).

1 Oct: 1,000 US troops, backed by attack helicopters, storm Sadah, a village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates, about eight miles from the Syrian border (AP, 1 Oct). ‘Power and water were cut off in the town, and all roads leading to it were blocked’ (WP, 2 Oct). ‘Twelve civilians [including seven women and children] were killed in an airstrike in Sadah’ the previous night, according to Ali Rawi, a physician at the hospital near Qaim. “Two more families were killed [on 1 Oct] at 11am when they were fleeing the town, driving on a dusty road” and an ambulance was called to the area but “the driver was shot by the US forces and his assistant was wounded.”

4 Oct: ‘In their biggest operation this year in Western Iraq’ 2,500 US troops and hundreds of Iraqi soldiers – backed by US warplanes and helicopters’ launch an offensive centred on Haditha, Haqlaniyah and Barwana (AP, 5 Oct).

Breaking up Iraq?
Iraq’s new draft constitution - due to be submitted to a referendum on 15 Oct – was the product of an illegal process characterised by “flawed negotiations driven at breakneck speed by American pressure to meet an unnecessary deadline” (former Coalition Provisional Authority legal adviser, Guardian, 2 Sept). It is ‘likely to fuel rather than dampen the insurgency, encourage ethnic and sectarian violence, and hasten the country’s violent break-up’ (Unmaking Iraq: A Constitutional Process Gone Awry, International Crisis Group, Sept 05).

Breaking the law
Under the existing interim constitution – signed into law by the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council in Mar 2004 - the draft constitution was supposed to be finished “no later than 15 August 2005.” However, when this failed to happen, the interim constitution was amended – probably illegally – to grant the drafters a week-long extension. On 22 Aug a draft with blank passages was presented to parliament and an additional 3-day delay was “announced” - without even the pretence of a legal basis (www.juancole.com, 23 Aug) – and when that too passed, the deliberations simply continued.

On 28 Aug Shiite and Kurdish negotiators terminated the process, and presented a “final” draft to parliament, which was immediately rejected by the Sunnis on the constitutional committee who “urged a no vote” (Guardian, 29 Aug). The US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, then indicated that further changes might still be made and that a “final, final draft” had not been presented (AP, Aug). Four minor amendments were made on 18 Sept (ICG) but on 4 Oct - despite the fact that ‘millions of copies [were]already circulating for voters to study’ - Khalilzad was still reported to be ‘leading a drive for major changes’ (Washington Post, 4 Oct)

Breaking up Iraq?
‘Federalism – decentralising power from Baghdad to the regions – was variously described as the “mother” or “monster” issue which dogged the negotiations’ (Guardian, 29 Aug). Under the terms of the draft constitution any subset of Iraq’s 18 provinces that does not include Baghdad can form a “region” with authority over “all that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities.” The latter are spelt out in article 108: basically defence, foreign, fiscal and customs policy.

Many Sunnis fear that this could lead to the creation of a “super region” of the nine predominantly Shiite governorates, which, alongside the existing Kurdish region (possibly augmented by Kirkuk), would ‘leave them with a landlocked central region lacking significant resources’ (ICG).*

“We don’t want delays”
Had the law actually been followed, parliament would have been dissolved on 15 Aug, followed by fresh parliamentary elections. The whole process would have had to begin again but, given the apparent hostility of Iraq’s Sunni population to the current draft, that would probably have been no bad thing.

However Washington had already made quite clear that this was not an option. “We don’t want any delays,” Donald Rumsfeld explained (IHT, 28 Jul). “They’re simply going to have to make the compromises necessary and get on with it.”

But no such compromises were made and in the week following the missed August deadline ‘US officials remained deeply involved’ (LA Times, 14 Aug) while the ‘Sunnis were basically shut out’ (NYT, 22 Aug).

What next?
The long series of delays has left ‘about two weeks for dissemination and debate [of the draft constitution] – a process that, according to the timetable in the interim constitution, was supposed to take two months’ (LA Times, 15 Sept) and it seems highly likely that many Iraqis will simply vote – as on 30 Jan – along sectarian lines.
Indeed, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani – the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq – has directed his followers to back the constitution (AP, 24 Sept), while Sunni clerics and tribal leaders have called on Iraqis to reject it (AP, 22 Sept).

The constitution could be defeated by either a simple nationwide majority voting against it, or a two-thirds majority voting “no” in at least three provinces. However, though the alternatives are grim – probably pushing Iraq even closer to full-blown civil war – a defeat for the draft on 15 Oct looks highly unlikely (IGC).

* Interestingly a Jul 2005 poll conducted by the International Republican Institute found 61% of Iraqis favouring a “strong central government” and only 14% “delegation of more power to the regions” or (1%) ‘dissolv[ing] central government.’

Oil, investment and military bases
Whilst several aspects of Iraq’s draft constitution have received some media attention – eg. Article 39 on “personal status law” (marriage, divorce, inheritance) which could lead to a serious erosion of women’s rights – others have received almost none.

Still on the books
Signficantly, none of the “free-market” laws passed by the US in Sept 2003 - which eg. “legalised” the sale of Iraq’s non-oil industries to foreign buyers (see Voices briefing Iraq for Sale, Sept 03) – are rescinded in the final draft. Indeed, according to article 25, the state is supposed to ‘guarantee the reforming of the economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector’ ie. in accordance with Washington’s ideologues.

Oil
As for oil, article 110 states that the federal government will “administer oil and gas extracted from current fields in cooperation with the [regional and provincial] governments”, distributing the revenues in a manner compatible with the population distribution “all over the country.” However, crucially, no such conditions are made regarding fields not yet exploited - or ones found in the future – leaving open the possibility of regional governments claiming responsibility for these.

Needless to say, if Iraq is effectively split into three and an oil-rich Kirkuk ends up inside a US-friendly Kurdish “region” this could be highly significant.

In what is probably a nod to Production Sharing Agreements (see here), Article 110 declares that federal, regional and provincial governments will “together draw up the necessary strategic policies to develop Iraq’s oil and gas wealth … relying on the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment” - paving the way for stealth privatisation.

“More or less indefinitely”
Also noticeable by its absence was an article stating that “[t]he erection of foreign military bases in Iraq is forbidden. In case of emergency, the parliament [may,] by a two thirds majority of its members … deviate from this article.” This appeared in an earlier draft but was dropped from the final version (Constitution-making under occupation, unpublished paper by Zaid al-Ali, an attorney at the New York bar who observed the drafting process in Baghdad, Aug/Sept).

One doesn’t have to look very far to find plausible reasons why it was removed. The US military is currently spending $124m ‘build[ing] new ramps, runway lights and sufficient tarmac to park 138 Army helicopters at the air field near Balad, north of Baghdad’ (NYT, 15 Sept) and recently predicted that American combat aircraft – which currently fly ‘about 50 close-air support and reconnaissance missions every day’ in Iraq – ‘would have to support Iraq’s fledgling security forces well after American ground troops eventually withdraw from the country’, maintaining “a rotational presence of some type in [the Middle East] more or less indefinitely’ (NYT, 30 Aug).

Stopping the suicide bombings
According to Robert Pape - Associate Professor at the University of Chicago and author of the recent book Dying to Win: the Logic of Suicide Terrorism – whilst “[m]any people worry that once a large number of suicide terrorists have acted … it is impossible to wind down … [t]he history of the last 20 years … shows the opposite” (interview with Robert Pape, The American Conservative, 18 Jul).

Since the invasion of Iraq a horrific campaign of multiple-fatality bombings – including at least 224 suicide bombings - has killed over 4,000 Iraqis (Iraq Index, 29 Sept). Furthermore ‘[t]he suicide bombing campaign is now more than ever directed at killing Shia civilians in as large numbers as possible’ and is ‘intensifying as the Shia-Kurdish government strengthens its grip on government’ (Independent, 1 Oct).

The central fact
Pape has compiled the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004 and concluded that “[t]he central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory [they] view as their homeland” (AC, 18 Jul).

Indeed, a recent study commissioned by the Saudi Government that ‘painstakingly analysed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq’ found that the vast majority were ‘not former terrorists [but] became radicalised by the war itself’ and that ‘most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive the infidels out of Arab land’ (Boston Globe, 17 Jul).

Stopping on a dime
Noting that “suicide-terrorist groups [often] routinely attack both civilian and military targets … looking for targets where they can maximize the number of casulaties”, Pape also claims that “[o]nce the occupying forces withdraw from the homeland of the terrorists, they often stop – and often on a dime.”

If he’s right, then ending the occupation may also be the best way to stop this terrible carnage.

Iraq's oil: stealth privatisation
“The Iraqi oil sector needs privatisation, but it’s a cultural issue”
- then-Iraqi Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, appointed by the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, Financial Times, 5 Sept 2003.

Major moves to open Iraq’s oil sector to multinational oil companies are now imminent and are likely to lead to highly unfavourable arrangements, tying the hands of future Iraqi governments for decades to come.

Indeed, according to officials in Iraq’s Oil Ministry, long-term contracts will be signed with foreign companies in the first nine months of 2006 (Mortgaging Iraq’s Oil Wealth, Platform, Sept 2005, citing International Oil Daily, 15 Jun).

A new Petroleum Law has already been drafted which, according to sources in the Iraqi government, specifies that while Iraq’s currently producing fields should be developed by state-owned oil companies, all other fields should be developed by private companies, operating under so-called production sharing agreements (PSAs) – the type of contract most favoured by the oil companies.

In June Oil Ministry officials announced that they had held preliminary talks with BP, Chevron, Eni and Total regarding the development of 11 oilfields in the south of Iraq. In July they announced that they were also ‘considering a licensing round, in which oil companies would bid for production sharing agreements on both known fields and exploration blocks.’

Running the show
Under a PSA the state (at least in theory) possesses ultimate control over the oil, which is divided into so-called “cost oil” - paid to the company to recoup its investment in exploration, drilling and construction - and “profit oil”, which is divided between the state and the company in agreed proportions.

However, in practice the state’s actions are usually severely constrained by the terms of the contract. For example, many PSAs contain clauses that can prevent future laws (eg. on labour standards, workplace safety, community relations or the environment) or tax policies from applying to the company’s project.

Indeed, as Professor Thomas Walde, an expert in oil law and policy at the University of Dundee explains, PSA’s are favoured by the oil companies precisely because “[t]he government can be seen to be running the show – and the company can run it behind the camouflage of legal title symbolising the assertion of national sovereignty.”

Lost revenues
Iraq also stands to lose out economically by bringing in foreign companies.
For example, if in ten years time the multinationals were producing half of Iraq’s oil revenues, then even with the most generous (to the state) profit split used in PSAs (80:20) – which it is unlikely to obtain under current circumstances - Iraq would still be losing 10% of its total revenue to the oil companies. A temporary saving of $2.5bn / year (through foreign investment) might be offset by lost income of $5.8bn /year just a few years later.

What’s more, Iraq could find itself losing revenue from its state-controlled fields due to compliance with OPEC quotas, if the PSA prevents it from restricting production in the foreign-controlled fields.

The sovereignty deficit
An Iraqi Government in 2006 – still under occupation and elected in what is likely to be a deeply flawed process – will possess neither the sovereignty nor the democratic mandate necessary to make decisions about Iraq’s oil that will be binding on future governments for the next 25 years.

Iraq does not need PSAs to rebuild and develop its oil industry. It has a highly skilled workforce, one of the lowest oil development costs in the world. According to Platform, the Ministry of Oil’s 10-year plan ‘could fairly comfortably be financed out of Iraq’s own revenues.’

Furthermore, to our knowledge there has been no public discussion in Iraq of the current plans. Indeed, most Iraqis have probably never even heard of PSA.
The whistle should be blown on this stealth privatisation before it’s too late.

ACTION
- The UK support committee for the Iraqi General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE) Naftana (Arabic: ‘our oil’) now has a web-site (The UK support committee for the Iraqi General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE) Naftana (Arabic: ‘our oil’) now has a web-site (www.basraoilunion.org) and an e-mail alerts list (to subscribe send an e-mail to naftana-subscribe@lists.riseup.net). The GUOE – founded in May 2003 by workers for the Southern Oil Company - is an independent union, opposed to privatisation, the occupation and the former regime.
- Read more about oil and Iraq at the Platform web-site: www.carbonweb.org

Campaign diary

The Parliament Square eleven (and counting)
Since our last newsletter 11 people have been charged with taking part in “unauthorised” demonstrations in the new anti-protest zone around Parliament (see Voices #42).

Five people – including an elderly woman who was handcuffed by the police – were arrested under the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act during a Stop the War Coalition protest in Parliament Square on 1 Aug, and five more at a grassroots
“Mass Act of Defiance” on 7 Aug.

In both cases the number of demonstrators was in the 100 – 200 range and it was unclear on what basis – if any - those arrested were singled out. A further 7 people have since been arrested at (or after) the weekly “tea parties” that are now taking place every Sunday in the Square (see www1.atwiki.com/picnic).

The arrestees are now preparing to mount a legal challenge to the Act and 2 trials have been scheduled for Jan.

For more info. on any of the above see www.parliamentprotest.org.uk.

Remember Fallujah
On 8 Nov 2004, after more than two months of aerial attacks, the US began its second major assault on Fallujah, devastating the city and killing hundreds of civilians.

Remember Fallujah is an open call for events this Nov to mark the 1st anniversary of last year’s assault and to raise awareness about the realities of the ongoing occupation . Current sponsors include Brent Stop the War, Iraq Occupation Focus, Sutton for Peace and Justice; Voices UK and the Wrexham Peace and Justice Forum.

Copies of the documentary film Testimonies from Fallujah are available from the voices office (£10 incl. p&p, DVD only, NTSC Region 1 format). A free info. sheet – including a full-colour A3 wall poster - will also be available from the end of Oct. Contact Voices (0845 458 2564 or voices@voicesuk.org).

Events taking place include:

- Speaking tour with US author and activist Rahul Mahajan (in Fallujah during the April 2004 siege of the city). Dates include: Leicester (18 Nov); Norwich (19 Nov); Kettering (20 Nov); Bradford (21 Nov); Edinburgh (22 Nov); Glasgow (23 Nov); Bristol (24 Nov); London (25 Nov, 7.30pm, Friends House, 173 Euston Rd); Sherborne (27 Nov) and Brighton (28 Nov, 7.30pm Brighthelm Centre, North Rd)

- Film screenings: 8 Nov, London (“Occupation Dreamland”, award-winning documentary about marines in Fallujah, 8.45pm, Institute for Contemporary Arts, The Mall); 10 Nov, Hull (‘A letter to the prime minister’, 7.30pm, Hull Screen, Albion St); 10 Nov, Wrexham (“Testimonies ...” and “A letter to the Prime Minister”, 7pm,Trinity Church, King St); 15 Nov, London (“Testimonies from Fallujah” and “Fallujah: April 2004”, 7pm, Inn on the Green, 3 Thorpe Close, W10, nearest tube Ladbroke Grove); and Reading. More info. www.remember fallujah.org.

- 25 Nov, London: Special fund-raising screening of “Testimonies from Fallujah” with Rahul Mahajan. 7.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Rd, NW1. All proceeds split between Muslim Peacemaker Teams (currently working in Iraq) and the costs of bringing Iraqi speakers to the IOF teach-in on 26 Nov.

- 26 Nov, London: “Voices from Occupied Iraq” teach-in. See www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk.

Pit Stop Ploughshares
In the early hours of 3 Feb 2003 five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker movement made their way into Shannon Airport and non-violently disarmed a U.S. navy war plane. They were charged with over $2.5mn worth of criminal damage and spent between 4 and 11 weeks on remand in Limerick Prison. The 5 will now stand trial at Dublin’s Four Courts on 24 Oct. For more info (including how you can support them) see http://warontrial.com/

Resistance round-up
17 Aug: ‘[I]n one of the largest single anti-war protests in recent US history’ tens of thousands of Americans stage over 1,600 candlelit vigils across the US in solidarity with anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan. No state is left untouched, with events in ‘small towns in the Midwest to big cities on the coast’ (Observer, 21 Aug)

17 Aug: The families of 17 soldiers killed in Iraq ‘beg[in] a legal bid … to secure an independent inquiry into the lawfulness of the 2003 conflict … lodg[ing] papers at the high court in London’ (Guardian, 18 Sept). See www.mfaw.org.uk.

8 Sept: In a vibrant protest that received widespread media coverage political folk band Seize the Day and friends (many of them dressed in orange jumpsuits) perform the ‘shackle shuffle’ outside the Birmingham offices of Hiatts (0121 357 4347), who make handcuffs and other products used to hold prisoners at the US Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay. See www.save-omar.org.uk and www.end-unlawful-imprisonment.org.uk.

24 Sept: ‘In the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation’s capital since the [invasion]’ at least 100,000 people take to the streets of Washington to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq (WP, 25 Sept). Approx 15-20,000 marched in London and protests also took place in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Toronto, San Francisco and Los Angeles amongst others.

26 Sept: Over 300 people – including Cindy Sheehan and Cornel West – are arrested at a sit-in against the war outside the White House (DemocracyNow.org, 27 Sept). A further 41 are arrested shutting down two entrances to the Pentagon.

26 Sept: A jury finds the St Patrick’s Four – pacifists from Ithaca, who entered an Army-Marine Recruiting Centre on 17 Mar 2003 and poured blood around the entrance (and a US flag) to call attention to the horror of war – not guilty of conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States (a charge carrying a max. sentence of six years). At the same time the 4 are found guilty of trespassing and federal property and now face up to 18 months imprisonment. They were the first peace activists to face conspiracy charges since the Vietnam War. For more info. see www.stpatricksfour.org.

Resources

Book
What I heard about Iraq by Eliot Weinberger (Verso, 2005, £7.99).
A brilliant, breathtaking distillation of the lies that led to the Iraq war and the horror of the subsequent invasion and occupation. Weinberger allows the participants to hang themselves - and their enterprise - with their own words, using a carefully chosen sequence of quotes (‘I heard … say …’) that reads like a poem and is just crying out to be adapted for use in anti-war street theatre. Easily digested in a single sitting, this book is likely to resonate in the reader’s mind long after it’s put down. The disintegration of Donald Rumsfeld on p 69-70 is worth the price of the book all on its own.

Remember Fallujah Newsheet
Special four-page tabloid – including a full-page colour window poster - for distribution during the Remember Fallujah month of action (see p. 6). Produced in conjunction with Peace News (www.peacenews.info) Bundles of 25 and 50 will be available FREE from the voices office from 1 Nov (0845 458 2564 or voices@voicesuk.org)

Web-sites
Justice Not Vengeance – www.j-n-v.org
Essential source of analysis and action re. the “war on terror.” Currently producing an indispensable daily ‘Media Review’ in the wake of the 7/7 London bombings. Recent topics have included Islamophobia, “realism” and “denial” concerning the role of British foreign policy in “heightening” the threat from al-Qaida and associated groups, and “terrorist t-shirts” at the Labour Party conference!

Baghdad Burning – http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com
Popular Iraqi web-log, written by a young Iraqi woman (and former computer programmer) living in Baghdad. An indispensable insight into what the occupation looks like from (one particular) Iraqi perspective.

News and info digests
Watching the Warmakers – www.watchingthewarmakers.org.uk
Excellent, free “war on terror” news digest e-mailed out on a weekly basis by the Brighton Hands Off Forum. Formatted for printing on double-sided A4.

Iraq Occupation Focus Newsletter - www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
Useful e-newsletter produced by the lively London-based anti-war group of the same name, containing a mix of news and anti-war events.

SchNews – www.schnews.org.uk
Wonderful weekly A4 news-sheet, covering a wide-range of issues (peace, environment, globalisation etc…) and actions, now in its 11th year! The web-site also contains a useful events listing and a DIY section with briefings on activism and “how to campaign.”

DVD
Testimonies from Fallujah (30 mins, 2005, £10 from voices incl p&p)
Despite the scale of violence and carnage in Occupied Iraq, images of the suffering and abuses are remarkably scarce. The photographs of Abu Ghraib violations stand out partly because they surface out of an environment of visual absences. Nowhere epitomises this more than Fallujah where some of the most outrageous acts of the current Occupation have taken place, including last November's siege and assault by US forces. Yet there was no Western news crew inside the city, even Al-Jazeera had left which makes 'Fallujah' all the more important. Comprising video testimonies from inside the beseiged city, along with footage of injuries and civilians under fire, it provides a concise introduction to the historical roots of resistance to US/UK incursions into the city and conveys a real sense of what such attacks do to a community. An important campaign resource.

Postcards
Voices is currently running two postcard campaigns: one to Tony Blair calling for an end to the US/UK military occupation of Iraq; and a second, to the Canadian High Commissioner, calling for Canada to grant sanctuary to US soldiers who have applied for asylum there. Copies of both cards – ideal for stalls, mailings etc - are available FREE from the office: voices@voicesuk.org or 0845 458 2564.