Irak 216

Beste collega's

Al vier jaar lang zwijgen de Nederlandse commerciele massamedia over de fundamentele rol die olie speelt bij de oorlog in Irak. Tot nu heeft het overgrote deel van de Nederlandse pers geen serieuze analyse daarover gegeven. Men heeft wel alle propaganda en leugens keurig doorgegeven, maar de Nederlandse journalisten zijn niet zelf op onderzoek gegaan. En dat, in tegenstelling tot onze collega's in de angelsaksische wereld, die uitgebreid over de oliemotieven hebben geschreven en nog steeds schrijven. Een voorbeeld:

'Iraq's Workers Strike to Keep Their Oil
By David Bacon
t r u t h o u t Columnist

The Bush administration has no love for unions anywhere, but in Iraq it has a special reason for hating them. They are the main opposition to the occupation's economic agenda, and the biggest obstacle to that agenda's centerpiece - the privatization of Iraq's oil. At the same time, unions have become the only force in Iraq trying to maintain at least a survival living standard for the millions of Iraqis who still have to go to work every day, in the middle of the war.
This week, Iraqi anger over starvation incomes and oil ripoffs boiled over. On Monday, June 4, the biggest and strongest of the Iraqi unions, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, launched a limited strike to underline its call for keeping oil in public hands, and to force the government to live up to its economic promises. Workers on the pipelines carrying oil from the rigs in the south to Baghdad's big refinery stopped work. It was a very limited job action, which still allowed the Iraqi economy to function.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responded by calling out the army and surrounding the strikers at Sheiba, near Basra. Then he issued arrest warrants for the union's leaders. On Wednesday, June 6, the union postponed the strike until June 11. Labor unrest could not only resume at that point, but could easily escalate into shutdowns on the rigs themselves, or even the cutoff of oil exports. That would shut down the income stream that keeps the Maliki regime in power in Baghdad.
Some of the oil workers' demands reflect the desperate situation of workers under the occupation. They want their employer - the government's oil ministry - to pay for wage increases and promised vacations, and give permanent status to thousands of temporary employees. In a country where housing has been destroyed on a massive scale, and workers often live in dilapidated and primitive conditions, the union wants the government to turn over land for building homes. Every year, the oil institute has miraculously continued holding classes and training technicians, yet the ministry won't give work to graduates, despite the war-torn industry's desperate need for skilled labor. The union demands jobs and a future for these young people.
But one demand overshadows even these basic needs - renegotiation of the oil law that would turn the industry itself over to foreign corporations. And it is this demand that has brought out even the US fighter jets, which have circled and buzzed over the strikers' demonstrations. In Iraq, the hostile maneuvering of military aircraft is not an idle threat to the people below. This standoff reflects a long history of actions in Iraq, by both the Iraqi government and the US occupation administration, to suppress union activity.
Iraq has a long labor history. Union activists, banned and jailed under the British and its puppet monarchy, organized a labor movement that was the admiration of the Arab world when Iraq became independent after 1958. Saddam Hussein later drove its leaders underground, killing and jailing the ones he could catch.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060907A.shtml

Ruim vier jaar geleden heb ik de olie-achtergronden van de oorlog beschreven en daarover programma's gemaakt voor de VPRO-radio. Jullie hoeven het alleen maar te lezen dan wel te beluisteren en te actualiseren. De feiten heb ik gecheckt en gedubbelcheckt. Lees verder: http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/oorlogomolie.html En: http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/oorlogomolie2.html Hier kunnen jullie de programma's beluisteren die ik over dit onderwerp voor de VPRO heb gemaakt: http://geschiedenis.vpro.nl/artikelen/18158234/

Bovendien kunnen jullie op deze weblog een schat aan achtergrondinformatie vinden, die geschreven is door onze professioneel werkende collega's in het buitenland. Aan de slag nu. Zo moeilijk is het toch niet om vier jaar na dato eerlijk over de motieven van wereldmachten te schrijven? Wat belet jullie? Voor wie of wat zijn jullie bang? Komop NRC, slijpsteen voor de geest, kom op Volkskrant en Trouw, misschien wel de beste krant van Nederland. Kom op Radio I, de sport en actualiteitenzender en andere nieuwsprogramma's.

Drie jaar geleden verontschuldigde de New York Times zich publiekelijk voor haar desastreuze berichtgeving voorafgaand aan de oorlog in Irak in deze bewoordingen:

"Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all." (From The Editors, 'The Times and Iraq,' New York Times, May 26, 2004)'

Van de Nederlandse journalisten die zich voor het karretje van de autoriteiten hebben laten spannen, heb ik nooit een verontschuldiging gehoord voor hun belabberde berichtgeving. Maar mogen jullie kijkers, luisteraars en lezers op zijn minst verwachten dat jullie je fouten herstellen door nu jullie werk gewoon fatsoenlijk te doen. Blijf niet op de redactie hangen, ga erop uit, onderzoek de werkelijkheid. Jullie worden er notabene voor betaald via reclamegeld of via de belastingen.
Collegiale groet
Stan van Houcke