9-17-06, 832 am
HADI Saleh was the International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. He visited Britain as part of a trade union delegation last year.
A month later, he was dead, murdered in his home by former members of Saddam Hussein's secret police.
Thirty years previously, Hadi had also faced death for trade union activities. Then, it was at the hands of a Ba'athist regime installed with US and British backing - replacing a somewhat more socially progressive government which had threatened Western oil interests.
Over the intervening period, Hadi had spent years on death row, gained release as a result of a Soviet-brokered amnesty, resumed his trade union activities, was forced into exile and returned to help rebuild the Iraqi trade union movement in 2003.
Hadi's story, now published by the TUC, is typical of that of many other Iraqi trade unionists.
Many thousands died under the previous regime. Hundreds have been killed since - often leaders targeted because of their positions.
It is also a story typical of the challenges that have faced the Iraqi trade union movement. Both Iraq and Iran have old working classes - created as the region became the focus of oil production by the imperialist powers, particularly by Britain after 1920.
Growing up among the workers in the oil fields, railways and docks, the trade unions formed the class base for secular, socialist and anti-imperialist politics.
Under occupation, trade unions also faced harassment and arrest by the US forces.
Since August 2005, they have had to operate under Decree 8750, which gives the government power over all their financial resources.
Hadi Never Died is, therefore, a very timely reminder of the duties of the British trade union movement.
Britain is the key ally of the US, which is still intent on using its occupation of Iraq to privatise its oil resources - something which the Iraqi trade unions have so far helped prevent.
It is the country's continuing occupation by forces identified with the most brutal imperialist aggression in Iraq and elsewhere that has provided the context for the acts of terror against the trade union movement and the civilian population generally.
Hadi, like other left and progressive Iraqis, had opposed the US-British invasion of 2003 and warned of the likely consequences.
For the British left, the continuing struggle of the Iraqi trade unions gives added urgency to the recent call from Iraq progressive forces, including the Iraqi Communist Party, for the creation of the conditions for this occupation to end in line with the demand from the Arab League conference last year for an immediate timetable for withdrawal.
From Morning Star
JOHN FOSTER
