People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXVII

No. 06

 February 09, 2003


Trade Unions Oppose War On Iraq

WHILE attending a trade union conference at Nagercoil in Tamilnadu, representatives of five major trade union centres from India, Australia, Great Britain, Iraq and Bangladesh expressed their strong opposition to the USA’s arrogant move to impose a war on Iraq.  

The trade union representatives said so in a statement issued from Nagercoil on January 31 when the fifth national conference of the Construction Workers Federation of India was on.

The statement said outright that when the United Nations was occupied with the question of Iraq, no country had the right to take upon itself the job of attacking Iraq on the pretext of destroying the weapons of mass destruction.

The meeting joined the world public opinion in opposing all war-like activities in the Gulf region and demanded that a solution to the present crisis must be found through negotiations so that peace is preserved in the Middle East.

Signatories to the statement were Dr M K Pandhe (president, Construction Workers Federation of India, a CITU affiliate), John Sutton (national secretary, Construction and General Division, Australia and international president, UITBB), George Brumwell (general secretary, Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, Great Britain), Qamarul Hasan (organising secretary, Jatio Sramik Federation, Bangladesh), and Khalil Al-Mish-Hadani (secretary general, Arab Vocation Federation For Construction And Wood Workers Syndicate, Iraq). (INN)