Carsten Kofoed: Only the complete victory of the resistance can end the occupation

Only the complete victory of the resistance can end the occupation

By Carsten Kofoed, Spokesman of the Danish Committee for a Free Iraq, January 22, 2005

More than a dozen prominent Iraqi exiles headed by people like Sami Ramadani, Haifa Zangana, Kamal Majid and others, all well-known for their anti-occupation stand and work in the anti-war movement, have made a quite surprising statement on the upcoming so-called national elections in Iraq, and elsewhere, on January 30. The statement entitled “Iraq elections are not free” was published in the British newspaper, the Guardian, on January 21. (1)

I have felt the need to make some comments on that particular statement, because I, with all modesty, think that it expresses positions on Iraq that are fundamentally wrong.

On the elections, which are completely illegal, as they are a result of the illegal aggression against and occupation of Iraq, the statement says, among other things:

“While boycotting this undemocratic exercise, we strongly condemn all forms of violence against Iraqis participating in it. We, as exiles, are confident that the vast majority of Iraqis, at home and abroad, shall unite to end the US-led occupation and establish democracy, whatever their stance on participation.”

Obviously, boycotting the election farce being held under US-led occupation and on a mountain of more than 100,000 dead Iraqis is very much understandable, but what does the rest of this quotation exactly mean?

Firstly, Allawi is participating in the election fraud, as he is running for “president”, and he is an Iraqi. Do the signatories really “condemn violence against Iraqis” like Allawi, his regime and all the parties being a part of it, all these Quislings, who together with the occupiers bear the responsibility for all the crimes of the occupation, the killings, torture and destruction, traitors, who have just hailed the massacre on Fallujah? In my view, they are all legitimate targets of the Iraqi resistance.

Secondly, and as regards ordinary Iraqis, the resistance, being the flesh and blood of the Iraqi people, does not want to hurt any innocent Iraqi father, mother or child, which is exactly why the resistance has been warning all Iraqis not to participate in any way in the illegal sham elections.

Trying to destroy the US election farce, which has the purpose of legitimizing the occupation by “electing” a new religiously and ethnically based US puppet regime and of driving Iraq further towards civil war, is an inherent part of the strategy of the resistance, just as it has been the objective of the resistance to smash the whole US-imposed “political process” in order to hinder the establishment of a stabile pro-US regime in Iraq, a goal that has been reached up until now.

The statement goes on by saying that one’s stand on the elections does not really matter as regards uniting for the end of the occupation. From that kind of logic, those collaborators, who are running in the elections or organizing them, who are benefiting from the occupation and destruction of their own country, could be considered as just as much interested in the end of the occupation as the vast majority of the Iraqi people and its resistance are.

In my opinion, such positions are completely wrong and extremely dangerous, because they blur the line between patriots and collaborators in Iraq, between those who are in the camp of the resistance and those who are the lackeys of the occupation, which includes people claiming to be “Communists” and “trade unionists”, but who do not want the murderous, illegal occupation of their own country to end immediately, because this would mean the end of their future in Iraq, too.

Nor is it fruitful to speculate in elections under occupation by putting forward “demands for minimal pre-conditions” like “confining all occupation forces to barracks until full withdrawal”, “establishing an independent election commission” and other totally illusory proposals.

It is astonishing that the signatories do not even mention the immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces as the absolute precondition for any development beneficial to the Iraqi people, a demand, which is part of the platform of the anti-war movement in the UK, as well as in Denmark, by the way. It is equally surprising that people who are proclaiming opposition to the occupation and even support for the resistance fail to mention the resistance with one single word, while making a statement on this election.

In Iraq, we are seeing that occupation troops are being attacked daily all over the country. Their Iraqi collaborators are being isolated and punished more and more systematically. It is also an undisputable fact that countries one by one have been leaving Iraq. All this is because of the armed resistance.

It is clear for everyone that it is the resistance who is on the offensive in Iraq. The intelligence chief of the Allawi puppet regime, Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani, recently stated that the resistance counts more than 200,000 active fighters and sympathisers, a figure, which for propagandist reasons is surely lower than in reality, but it is still higher than the number of occupation forces and the “Iraqi” army altogether. This shows that no one, if he or she wants to be taken seriously, can hide the fact that the resistance is growing and succeeding in Iraq.

Therefore, and especially at this moment, one should be very much aware of all kinds of illusions about the occupation, about spectacular ways to magically end it without continuing on the successful road of armed resistance. All these proposals involving the so-called international community, which was just watching as the Iraqis were suffering and being killed for 13 years under the genocidal UN sanctions, or this or that institution, only serve one single purpose: to save the US-led occupation of Iraq from defeat, to hinder the Iraqi people from getting their great victory: the liberation of Iraq.

The anti-war movement in the world should condemn the illegal US election farce on January 30 as well as any election in Iraq as long as the occupation persists. It should loudly reiterate its demand of immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq, and state its clear support for the Iraqi resistance fighting a legitimate war of liberation.

Notes:

1. Iraq elections are not free, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/, January 21, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1395206,00.html

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