The regime in Irag has claimed to be the staunchest enemy of imperialism and Zionism. It is a false claim.
Those who doubted this had some of their illusions removed when the Iraqi army stood passively by while the Hashemite monarch of Jordan butchered the Palestinians during the month of black September in 1970.
Nonetheless, illusions in the nature of the Iragi regime continue to persist. The British Communist Party and its suppogters neither mention the struggle waged by the Kurds against the regime nor the brutal repression which confronts all communists and revolutionaries opposed to the Ba'athist Government FRAGMENTED The struade of the Kurdish people gainst cational oppresion dates hac o the post-World War One period when the Kurdish people were frag mented and divided amongst the artificial states created in the area by British and French imperialism. Iraq was one such state, and the bulk of Kurds were to find themselves within its frontiers.
The struggle of the Kurds has been uneven over the decades, but it has nonetheless proved to be a constant thorn in the flesh of successive Iraqi governments. In March 1970, however, the Iraqi Government signed a pact with the Kurdish Democratic Party which granted the Kurds a form of limited autonomy.
This agreement gave the Iraqi Bar athists a badly-needed breathing space to consolidate their regime, which lacked popular support. They started off by smashing the Iragi Communist Party, and especially its revolutionary wing (Central Command), which was at the time waging an armed struggle in Southern Irag. The Soviet Union aided this task by instructing their appendage within the Iragi CP (the Contral Committee wing) to capitulate to Ba'athism.
This helped the regime to stabilise itself and develop its repressive forces. This strengthened state apparatus has substituted for the social Kurdish querrillas of the Pesh Marge on base which the Iraqi Balath so conspicuously lacks.
NEW WAR Once the CP bad been assimilated and its dissident wing smashed, the Iragi butchers turned once again to "solve the Kurdish problem". In March 1973 a new war was launched which continucs to this very day. At the same time the Iragis, following the Zionist example of moving Jews into conquered Arab villages, are Arabising Kurdish areas.
This has led to the forced expulsion of Kurds on a massive scale from key cities (such as Kirkuk), and their replacement by Arab villagers from the south. During the present war over halt a mulhon Kurdish refugees have fled either to the liberated areas or over the Iranian border to escape the indis criminate bomis dropped by Iraqi MIGs. The aim of the Ba'athists is to wipe out the Kurds as a nationality. In other words: genocide. STRAINS The Ba'athist experiment in Iraq depends to a certain extent on their ability to crush the Kurds decisively to do so can already be seen in:
to shoot in the back all those who "retreat" in the face of the Kurds;
2. The summary execution of dozens of officers and seldiers on charges of organising communist cells in the army:
merely resign from the army.
that the Kurds are not simply fighting for self-determination, but for the right to live. The wall of silence surrounding the Kurdish strugale is a result of both imperialist and bureaucratic pressures, but the Kurdish revolution is part and parcel of the Arab revolution, That is why the IMG will be participating in the demonstration called by the Brunel University Students Union on 30 November for 1,00 pm at Speakers" Corner.
Saleh Jaslar