Iraq Trade Union Leader, Hadi Saleh, Assassinated 4th January 2005

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Monday January 10, 2005 14:26

by redjade

Hadi Saleh, Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) International Secretary, assassinated 4th January 2005.

Hadi Saleh

Silence of the Lambs
By Marc Cooper
http://marccooper.typepad.com/marccooper/2005/01/silence_of_the_.html

Pardon me, but the silence from the port side is rather deafening. Early this week Iraqi trade union leader Hadi Salih was brutally murdered by a barbarous gang associated with the “resistance.”

Salih was a socialist who was first jailed by Saddam Hussein when we was 21 years old. For the last two years, with Saddam gone, he was once again on the front line of Iraqi organized labor and fully engaged in the daunting task of trying to construct some semblance of civil society.

That was his crime. Of course, in the eyes of his executioners, his crime was having “collaborated” with the occupation by not opposing it in arms.

Representatives of Salih’s Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions was recently embroiled in a heated controversy in the UK when some knuckle-headed lefties banned them from a European conference of activists. Other, more intelligent, leftists have rallied to Salih’s side.

At least, there was a friggin’ debate in the Britain. Here, amongst the American anti-war left this is all a non-issue. A non-issue because U.S. anti-war campaigners have never bothered to figure out who or what they are actually FOR in Iraq – only what and who they are against.

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Stop the War Coalition and the IFTU
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/article.asp?id=111004
October 2004

In this last undertaking the IFTU representative worked as the direct instrument of the government and the Labour Party apparatus, which prepared and distributed his statements to delegates. Indeed, the statement by the IFTU representative issued by the Party was not merely supportive of the continued military occupation of his country, but could also be read as supportive of the original invasion of Iraq.

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Update

Thu Jan 13, 2005 15:19

Press blackout on Iraqi trade union leader's murder
- Union activists as much at risk in Iraq as in Colombia.
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature5.cfm?REF=22

Iraqi trade union leader Hadi Salih, International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), was tortured and killed in his home in Baghdad Tuesday night – but a Nexis search reveals not a word has yet appeared in the US Press.

"According to a report today from the IFTU, Salih was severely tortured before being put to death. Evidence of torture was visible on his head and body. His hands and legs had been tied. He was blindfolded, then strangled with electrical wire. Iraqi trade union sources believe that the atrocity was carried out by remnants of Saddam Hussein's secret police, the Mukharabat," said the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in a statement.

On a visit to Europe last year, Salih "outlined the problems facing Iraqi trade unionists including lack of funds, the continued implementation of anti-union laws brought in by the Baathist dictatorship, and attacks from US forces on IFTU offices."

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Iraq Trade Union Leader, Hadi Saleh, Assassinated 4th January 2005

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