Iraqi Workers Protest Oil Law Tomorrow

Monday, June 4, 2007

"Hands off Iraqi oil!" will be the demand TOMORROW as local activists join visiting Iraqi workers for a rally to protest the proposed privatization of Iraqi oil under a new Iraqi oil law. The rally starts at 5P outside the offices of BearingPoint, the contractor commissioned to write the new oil law, and concludes with a march to the US Capitol. The law, currently being considered by the Iraqi Parliament, calls for the privatization of Iraqi oil reserves. Opponents of the law argue it was drafted “behind closed doors” and claim “it was Americans and oil companies who wrote the initial draft," reports Ben Lando of United Press International. This not the first time the US has pushed for Iraqi oil privatization. In 2002, the State Department “devised a plan to open Iraq to international oil companies ‘as quickly as possible after the war’” and the Iraq Study Group suggested reorganizing Iraq’s oil industry into a “commercial enterprise with ‘US assistance,’” says US Labor Against the War (USLAW). This law aims to “rob Iraq’s national wealth by virtue of unfair, long term oil contracts that undermine the sovereignty of the State and the dignity of the Iraqi people,” says a statement of Iraq’s five trade federations, which represent hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers. The rally is the first event of the USLAW National “Voices of Iraqi Workers Solidarity Tour.”

 

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