Buffalo News (New York), June 24, 2005, Friday

Copyright 2005 The Buffalo News
Buffalo News (New York)

June 24, 2005 Friday
FINAL EDITION

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. D6

HEADLINE: IRAQI LABOR ACTIVISTS SAY U.S. HAS SPLIT NATION ON RELIGIOUS, ETHNIC LINES

BYLINE: By Anthony Cardinale - NEWS STAFF REPORTER

BODY:
Two Iraqi labor activists visited Buffalo this week to promote a movement toward a secular government for Iraq.
Declaring that they "have no religion," the Iraqis on Wednesday told 40 unionists at Marygold Manor in Cheektowaga that millions of Iraqis want a secular government. They accused the U.S.-led occupying forces of dividing the Iraqi people by religious and ethnic backgrounds and bringing about a government dominated by Shiite Muslims.
Falah Awan, 42, of Baghdad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Workers Councils & Unions, said he was barred from his engineering career for refusing to sign a loyalty pledge to Saddam Hussein. After working as an underground union organizer, he said, he founded his federation after the fall of Saddam and has traveled widely to promote it.
Amjad Ali Aljawhry, 38, of Toronto, the federation's North American representative, was blacklisted for organizing sewing workers and fled the country in 1995. He said official estimates of 23,000 Iraqis killed in the war don't account for unreported noncombatant casualties that could raise the toll to about 100,000.
Describing living conditions for Iraqis, Aljawhry told of a 65-year-old man who suffered a heart attack one night but didn't reach the hospital for four hours because of the chaos in the streets. He could have been saved but was dead on arrival, he said.
"The guy happens to be my father," he added. "And this guy is unaccounted, by the way."
Aljawhry said he recently returned to Iraq for four months and saw chaos -- limited water and electric service, poor sewers, hospitals without equipment and 70 percent unemployment.
"I am not saying it was better under Saddam," he said. "But we felt that he would someday be downfallen and the (United Nations) sanctions would end."
Awan of Baghdad said the ongoing polarization of Iraqi society was caused by the invasion.
Iraq under Saddam was never an Islamic state, he said, but now Islamic fundamentalists are using the occupation as an excuse for imposing clothing and travel restrictions on Muslim women.
"The United States installed a government by ethnic, sectarian and religious identity," he said. "This encouraged terrorists to unleash violence on the basis that one group (the Shiites) was in power and that others were marginalized."
Awan was asked whether the Shiites really came to power because the minority Sunnis -- who enjoyed power under Saddam -- boycotted the election. He replied that others also boycotted the election, including leftist forces, and that fragmentation of Iraqi society started long before the election.
Both men said a unilateral pullout of Western forces wouldn't plunge the country into chaos -- it's already in chaos.
However, Awan said in April that the occupying forces should be replaced by a military force "from countries that haven't participated in the occupation" until new elections are held.
The forum was sponsored by the Cornell University Industrial & Labor Relations Project, the Western New York Peace Center and the Coalition for Economic Justice.