March 2004 - VOLUME 25 - NUMBER 3
An Interview with Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is founding director of the San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange, and co-founder of CodePink, a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement that seeks positive social change through proactive, creative protest and non-violent direct action. Benjamin was a leader of the U.S. citizen movement against the war in Iraq, and remains actively engaged in monitoring conditions in post-war Iraq, which she has visited on several occasions.
There could very well be an imposition of free market fundamentalism that squashes the private sector that existed, that represses workers, and that allows the sale of Iraqi resources to foreign corporations. |
Multinational Monitor: Is Iraq better off now, after the U.S. invasion?
In terms of ability to speak out, there is more freedom of speech, more possibility of organizing independent organizations, more possibility of building civil society. In the longer term, if Iraq doesn't descend into civil war, there is a possibility it could be a more vibrant society with grassroots sectors that are active participants in society. But whether that occurs is totally a question mark. MM: If the situation unfolds in a more positive direction in the medium and long term, would that provide a retrospective justification for the war?
I also don't think that our global community or our democracy are well served by the precedent of a pre-emptive war that was waged on false pretenses. MM: What is the level of organized or random violence, in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, and how is that affecting people's day to day lives?
Certainly for women, the lack of security has been a terrible problem. There is a new wave of rapes and abductions and sex trafficking that makes many women afraid to leave their homes. That can be attributed to the terrible mistake the U.S. made when, after the invasion, they dismissed the entire police force, and left the country to be looted and pillaged. MM: To what extent is the Iraqi economy functioning, especially outside of the realm of the U.S. contractors and their activities?
Despite that, life goes on. The Iraqi people are very entrepreneurial. They continue to try to find ways to survive. MM: How are the private contractors performing? What are they doing, and how well are they doing it?
I was shocked when I visited the hospitals. They are worse off now than they were under sanctions. They lack the most basic equipment and medicines. I thought the hospitals would be the one place where the U.S. would pour money in, because it is easy, limited and the benefits are immediate. People would be happy if they saw that, after sanctions were lifted, the hospitals were clean and well stocked. But instead there are hospitals today that not only lack the basics but are so unsanitary that 80 percent of patients leave with infections they didn't have when they arrived. Some of the hospitals are almost like war zones. The U.S. forces stood by after the invasion while the hospitals were looted, and they haven't been re-equipped. Patients come in and yell and even hit the doctors, because they are not getting the medicines and treatment they or their children need. Doctors are so disillusioned that they are trying to leave the country. Certainly this is not what Iraqis expected after being occupied by the richest country in the world. MM: Are the hospitals something for which the contractors have responsibility?
MM: You mentioned the levels of violence against women. How are women's roles, in law and society, evolving post-invasion, and how does that contrast to their status under Saddam?
On December 29, 2003, however, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council tried to revoke that civil law and put those issues into the hands of Islamic courts. Shocked women mobilized and organized, and managed to roll back that resolution. But there are concerns that the rollback is temporary, because the very people who pushed it are the ones who will probably be strengthened in the political transition that happens June 30. It is also important to understand that the United States government was totally in charge of deciding who would get power, and who wouldn't, in this transition period. It could have appointed many women to important positions, and it didn't. There were many well-educated women who could have been picked for the Governing Council, or to be ministers or governors of provinces. Yet the U.S. picked only three women for the 25-person Governing Council, only one woman minister, no women governors, and no women on the committee that was writing the interim constitution. Women activists in Iraq see the U.S. as having deliberately undermined the position of women in their efforts to gain the support of the more conservative Islamic clerics. MM: How have workers fared under the occupation?
Yet when workers petitioned the U.S. authorities to change the repressive law of Saddam Hussein that denied workers in the public sector the rights to collective bargaining, to form unions or to strike, the U.S. said they couldn't change those laws. That would have to be up to a new Iraqi government, they said. So workers have not gained their basic rights to organize into independent unions. Workers have also faced a tremendous wave of unemployment. One of the saddest things in Iraq today is to see highly skilled workers -- whether skilled construction workers, or engineers or architects -- standing idle on street corners, without an opportunity to rebuild their country. This while U.S. contractors get to decide who will work and who won't, and often import engineers at 10 times the salary of local engineers -- foreign engineers who know nothing about Iraq and have not been successful at getting the job done. MM: What is the status of privatization of the Iraqi government-controlled industries?
But the U.S. authorities certainly want to see an economy in Iraq that would be a model of their view of the free market, a model they would hope to spread to the rest of the Middle East. So while the plans for privatization are temporarily on hold, if the U.S. has its way, Iraq will see its resources sold off to the highest foreign bidder. MM: Who is now in control of the oil industry?
Right now, while the Iraqi oil industry is still a national industry, the U.S. controls the country and therefore controls the oil industry. It is determining how the oil resources are spent, the level of production, the sales. So while in theory Iraqis control their own oil industry, in practice the U.S. controls everything. MM: Have particular companies gained special arrangements with the Iraqi oil industry?
MM: Will decision making in the broad economy change after the transition to so-called self-rule in June?
The U.S. authorities wanted to put an end to the ration system, because they think it is inefficient, too expensive and not value creating. But they found that Iraqis had become accustomed to having their basic food needs met. They had a sense of entitlement. So the U.S. has so far not been able to put an end to the ration system. It would like the new Iraqi government to do that and to free up billions of dollars that are now spent guaranteeing the population has enough food to keep them alive. This will be a very big struggle in the months to come, because it does take up a lot of Iraqi resources; on the other hand, it would be very politically delicate for a new Iraqi government to take away people's food rations. I don't know how that issue is going to play out. There are other services that the Iraqi government had provided for people. These include free public education -- all the way through graduate school, and even including post-graduate studies -- and free and universal healthcare. As we know in the United States, the U.S. government does not believe in either of those two things. I think it is trying to promote Iraqis to power who also believe that people are not entitled to education, healthcare or food. MM: How much autonomy do you expect the new Iraqi government to have?
If the new government is composed of people who have a base in their communities, it will be a government that is much more independent, and potentially much more anti-American. MM: If you were able to take over the decision-making of U.S. policy today, what would you have the U.S. government do regarding Iraq?
But in the meantime, the Iraqi people need the help of the international community. I would urge the United Nations to oversee the political transition, including direct elections. I would implement an orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops, encourage the international community to help speed up the training of Iraqi army and police, and work to put in place a backup UN peacekeeping force of about 30,000 to 40,000 to support an Iraqi army. I would take the U.S. money allocated for reconstruction, tear up the contracts with the U.S. companies, and instead use that money to build up the appropriate ministries inside of Iraq, as well as to support Iraqi businesses. MM: Do you believe the U.S. and international opposition to the war and subsequent U.S. policy in Iraq has made a difference?
Perhaps most importantly, the protest movement in the United States has shown the world community that not all Americans agree with the Bush administration's aggressive, militaristic policies. In fact, one of the most important things we can do to make us safer here at home is to show the American face of compassion and peace to the world community. n |
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One of the saddest things in Iraq today is to see highly skilled workers whether skilled construction workers, or engineers or architects standing idle on street corners, without an opportunity to rebuild their country. This while U.S. contractors get to decide who will work and who wont, and often import engineers at 10 times the salary of local engineers. |
I was shocked when I visited the hospitals. They are worse off now than they were under sanctions. They lack the most basic equipment and medicines. | |
The U.S.
authorities wanted to put an end to the ration system, because they think
it is inefficient, too expensive and not value creating. But they found that Iraqis had become accustomed to having their basic food needs met. |