ANTI-OCCUPATION MARCH: THE WOMEN'S CONTINGENT CALLED BY THE IRAQI WOMEN¹S LEAGUE SAYS NO OCCUPATION

national | anti-war / imperialism | press release Friday September 26, 2003 20:06 by Iraqi Women's League and Global Women's Strike GWS in IRL 087 7838688

The Global Women's Strike in Ireland will lead a women's contingent on the march on Saturday 27th September in Dublin to answer a call for support from the Iraqi Women's League.

The Iraqi Women's League-UK is appealing to all women and women's organizations in the UK and Ireland for support...

THE WOMEN'S CONTINGENT CALLED BY THE IRAQI WOMEN¹S LEAGUE SAYS:

NO OCCUPATION

The Global Women's Strike in Ireland will lead a women's contingent on the march on Saturday 27th September in Dublin to answer a call for support from the Iraqi Women's League.

The Iraqi Women's League-UK is appealing to all women and women's organizations in the UK and Ireland for support and to join their own Women's Contingent at the Anti-Occupation march in London on Saturday to demand the end of the US/UK occupation of Iraq, and that:

· The UN plays a leading role in the post-Saddam period, ensuring the urgent reconstruction of Iraq.

· The Iraqi people are enabled to organise our own security and stability. Essential rebuilding must be paid for by those who have bombed our water supply, hospitals, and other infra-structure.

· The Iraqi people must not be prevented from establishing our own federal democratic regime in which we can practise our complete freedom and independence.

· The outrageous sell-off of Iraqi resources must stop immediately, and all barriers to the sovereignty and integrity of Iraq must be removed.

· Saddam and all his gang must be put on trial.


Many of us have family members living in Iraq, so we hear first-hand of the unbearable suffering of all Iraqis. But everyone knows from long experience that women are always more vulnerable to occupying armies. Women have given up going out to work because the streets are not safe. Women are harassed at military checkpoints, just as Palestinian women are, against the traditional treatment of women. The message coming from Iraqi women is: We have no security, no water, no gas, no electricity, no medicine, little or no food at prices we can afford. (The occupying armies have plenty of food, electricity, etc.) Unemployment is 70%. Women the carers must work hardest trying to ensure everyone¹s survival despite the lack of basic necessities.

We call on women to march with us to make women¹s survival work, deprivation, vulnerability, struggle and demands visible. Only when women's situation is visible, is the real cost of war and occupation truly known and understood.

We demand a new beginning for the Iraqi people in general and Iraqi women in particular ­ women as mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, who suffered th consequences for themselves and their families of three brutal wars and many years of dictatorship. A Women's Contingent of the national march will put added pressure on the occupying forces to leave, for the destruction and killing to stop, and for the rebuilding of Iraqi society to begin.

We extend our heartfelt support to women in other countries, including in Palestine and Afghanistan, who are also suffering the consequences of war and occupation.

The media have recently uncovered the reality of the Saddam Hussein regime by showing mass graves in which bodies even of children and the elderly were buried. They do not mention that if the countries now occupying Iraq hadn¹t armed and supported that regime as it carried out these atrocities against us, we could have got rid of him much earlier.

We say to women in Ireland and Britain: We look forward to your solidarity in particular, and rely on your support. Supportive men welcome.