6-06-07, 9:30 am
Interview with Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, Iraqi Electrical Utility Workers Union President June 5, 2007, Washington, D.C.
Swanson: In the United States they tell us a lot of strange stories. They told us about weapons of mass destruction, they told us about the attacks of September 11 in the United States in 2001 which Iraq had nothing to do with. Then they told us a lot about the Iraqi people and that we are there for the Iraqi people and their democracy. But recently we don’t hear that so much. Recently we hear that we must occupy Iraq for the US troops, for the US soldiers. To benefit them we must occupy Iraq. When you hear Congress members say why they have to vote for more money, for longer occupation, they say, “This is for the troops.” So it’s not for weapons of mass destruction . . .
Swanson: What do you think of these reasons for continuing the occupation?
Hussein: I want to first understand. The money? The authorization of money in Congress is to help the troops?
Swanson: This is what they tell us. It doesn’t make any sense to me. They say . . .
Hussein: Let me tell you the opinion of the people.
Swanson: Yes, please.
Hussein: It is as simple as this sentence: America came for the oil. They are all excuses. It was possible they could have removed Saddam Hussein in the first war, but he actually gave them privileges in the area, in the Middle East, and many people think that Saddam gave them a signature on a blank piece of paper. And as a result, Saddam stayed and he managed to oppress and stop the uprising. Everyone knows that America has interest in the area whether it was geographical location for the troops in addition to what Iraq has in not just oil but other resources, Iraq resources. Because Iraq’s land is rich with many metals.
And now we have a rumor that I don’t know how strong it is that we have mercury, that Iraq is very rich in red mercury which is the most rare in the world and still has not been discovered. Therefore, we think that America has interests. And the evidence is that we have been suffering for years from the destruction. It could have throughout the four years, America could have returned the electricity to the Iraqi people, cleaned up the area, provided healthy water, paved the destroyed roads. They have cancelled the whole entire sewer system.
Where is America when we are having all this destruction?
Swanson: This is David Swanson, and I am here with Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, who is the president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, part of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers. She is also on the executive committee of the Basra Work Unions Coalition. She is head of the Women Workers Bureau and is a leader in the Iraqi Women’s Association. And we will try to discuss what all of those things mean. So welcome, and I apologize that I cannot do this in Arabic.
Hussein: I am happy to meet you and thank you for your invitation.
Swanson: Thank you for coming, and how was your trip to the United States?
Hussein: Good.
Swanson: Through Jordan.
Hussein: Through Jordan and Amman, but I am good now.
Swanson: And so can you tell me just very briefly your background, where you were born and raised, and how did you get to the point where you were working at the Southern Company for Electricity?
Hussein: I am an Iraqi from an Iraqi mother and Iraqi father. I work in the Department of Electricity, the part that belongs to the Ministry of Electricity. I have been working there for about 25 years. After the regime failed, we started doing unions. Specifically in September 2003, I was elected to the president of a committee. After that there was the first institutional meeting in about May 2004 and in that conference I was elected to be the president and that consists of eight committees. I worked as president for that committee for about two years and according to the laws after two years we re-elect. And then there was a second conference in June 2006. And that month I was elected again, re-elected to be the president.
Swanson: Congratulations.
Hussein: Thank you very much.
Swanson: And why did the union form after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime? Can you compare the rights of workers under the Saddam Hussein regime and under the US occupation? Did it become easier to form a union? Did it become actually legal to form a union or just feasible to do it?
Hussein: The first institutional conference for Iraqi workers, it was established in 1959. And then these federations were very active then and they had a lot of rights. And they were very active until 1975. And then after ’75 and ’78 there were a lot of attacks on these federations and anyone, well the active committees and active federations there was a crackdown on them.
Swanson: I’m sorry. What role did Iraqis understand the US government to be playing in that?
Translator: This is in ’75?
Swanson: Yes.
Hussein: There was no role of US. And after ’75 they started a crackdown on the leaders of these federations. And then these federations started turning into kind of governmental authoritarian institutions. Many of the leaders were killed and were imprisoned, leaving the organizations or leaving the country.
In the ‘80s all the federations, all the committees, fell under the government and that goes along to the rest of the organizations, the civilian organizations such as union officers, student unions and women’s unions. And they started attacking these unions.
In 1978 Saddam issued order #150 and he changed the workers into government employees in the public sector. And under that order, under section #52 you are allowed to work as a union only if you are in a private sector. And since then there has not been any organization or union.
There are a couple of purposes for the order #150. One is if there are no workers per se there is no need for a union.
Swanson: Yes.
Hussein: And then also they took the money from these unions. There was at the time when especially the Iraqi government was very strong, and it was the amount of $4.5 trillion Iraqi dinar. And they took the money and they transferred it into their military work.
And then we were, as we say, waiting for something good to happen until April 2004.
At that time, the previous (although they were older) organizers got very active again and they established the new unions.
Swanson: Why April 2004? What changed?
Hussein: The fall of the regime and the regime was preventing us from having unions.
Swanson: So 2004 or 2003?
Hussein: 2003.
Swanson: 2003? OK.
Hussein: Yeah, yeah. Did I say 2004?
Swanson: In my understanding, Paul Bremmer maintained in place Saddam Hussein’s order, I believe the one you were describing earlier, so that initially at least under the US occupation unions were no more permitted than they had been before.
Hussein: Let me continue after 2003.
Swanson: OK.
Hussein: We started working without really any official law that we fall under. We received a lot of threats and pressure, especially also from the American government, and our headquarters was attacked. Americans attacked our headquarters. American forces attacked our headquarters.
And from the principle that the US was bringing democracy, we insisted on being there, existing. They didn’t like it but we insisted.
And then in 2005 there was a new order, #8750, to freeze the unions and the federations of workers and they put their hands on their properties and their finances. We work without any financial support. And from an organizational point of view, you have to have financial capabilities to support your workers. But this is all from our own efforts and donations among us and we continue until this moment.
Many members were assassinated. Ali Hassan Abd was one of them, I’m sure you knew him. He was a member of a union and he was the official for external affairs and he was very well known outside the country with his contacts and relationships. And he was a big loss for the union and for Iraq.
Swanson: You set an example for workers in this country and in other countries. So can I ask just briefly how strong is the labor movement? What percentage of Iraqi workers are in unions and in your workplace is everyone in a union or what percentage?
Hussein: The total of workers we have in – maybe a little more, a little less – 46,000. Members of the union are of that total, 16,750. The number of the leaders of the unions 786. And they are spread over 93 committees. This is in general for the Basra union.
Regarding the electrical, 5500. That is the general number, and the union number is 1,700. The number of the directors that work with me about 154 spread over eight federations or committees.
The number of women union leaders 46. So as women leaders we have 46. And there are six committees that have that.
Swanson: OK. Thank you very much. Very quickly, if you don’t mind talking about it. I understand that you and your family have received death threats.
Hussein: It’s old.
Swanson: It’s old?
Hussein: Not now. Because our demands were conflicting with interests of some leaders. Governmental. So one of these leaders actually was arrested immediately because of my interview. It’s a TV station, and I in that interview I was showing the contract that were taking place and I was shedding light on the waste of money that was going through the governments and as a result he got immediately arrested.
So the name of the program was Building Our Country, and the specific show was about electricity.
Many contracts, especially after the fall of the government, there were a lot of contracts, and we were fighting these contracts. It was the specific policy to set aside the professionals, the experts, and the technocrats, away from this operation. These contracts have hidden money or hidden amounts that were going for the officials. Those officials started working with certain gangs and certain parties that really don’t have good intentions to do their work for them. So we started receiving these death threats. I received it in a small piece of paper, to leave the job.
And as a result, I had to put pressure on my son’s freedom. I started working even a lot harder and stronger.
Swanson: Good, good. I understand that your colleague, Faleh Abood Umara, who is I believe, I hope, coming to join you on this tour, that his union is now on strike, and that one of the concerns is the draft oil law. And I’m wondering, here in the United States people don’t know anything about the oil law. Are the people of Iraq aware of this oil law and of this strike, and what do they think about it?
Hussein: At the beginning, the oil law was not really, even the draft of the oil law, it wasn’t even exposed to the people. They started a committee for certain selected people, technocrats, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister. And then they started discussions and back and forth with international companies and with the IMF.
They only included very few Iraqi experts. And these discussions were behind closed doors. And then the draft came out and then the Office of the Prime Minister signed it. And it was then submitted to the Parliament. We learned about the draft through papers, through the media. And there were many discussions with specialists. And all unions were against this law, draft, for one main reason – mainly because of the oil production sharing agreement that was done with the foreign companies which sums up to these foreign companies will own 70 percent of the oil. And these production sharing agreements (PSA), we believe that, PSAs are in our opinion another word for privatization.
Swanson: Yes. And I’m curious if you have any idea whether the majority of the Iraqi people in Iraq agree with the union’s position or even know what is going on. And similarly with regard to the US occupation, here we are often told that the Iraqis want the US troops to stay in Iraq. Is that true?
Hussein: OK. Really it is with the work and the help of civil organization and media that are working for the Iraqis and work of the unions we had the chance to educate the Iraqis about the draft. And we also stressed the fact that this sector which is the oil sector must stay under the umbrella of the government, belong to the government.
And also we believe that there should not be privatization. It should become a government operation, taking care of the interest of the oil reserve since we are the second largest in the world. And we don’t believe that there should be a production-sharing agreement. There should be a percentage of profit that goes to these companies according to their work.
Swanson: Yes. And do the Iraqi people want the US soldiers to stay in Iraq or to leave?
Hussein: We suffered from dictatorship for 35 years. We all wanted a change. But we did not choose war or occupation. We were hoping that the change would be from inside and that the Iraqi people would be supported in doing so. All along the Iraqis, we have not been able to do so.
I believe the uprisings that took place after invasion of Kuwait in ’91, there was people uprising but there was no leadership to plan and implement. And who participated in pressing this uprising is America, is the American administration because it gave permission to the Iraqi government at the time which was to fly their airplanes even when there was a no-fly zone.
Swanson: Yes.
Hussein: And they gave them specifics of where these uprisings were taking place and then the government . . . And I believe the whole world got to witness the abuse that took place and the atrocity that took place at the time. And just as I am coming on my flight a couple of days ago, on the plane I was watching, there was a program, and I don’t know what it was, but I was watching, Chemical Hassan was kicking with his foot the people that were doing the uprising. So I am sure people throughout the world got to witness that also.
And the war took place and afterwards it became a reality. So we are now in the new invasion, in the invasion and many people heard about this. As an example, the resistance that took place in one town the people resisted for two weeks continuously, but it is a small population against a big army. The people cannot resist for such a big army.
In the beginning, after the fall of the regime, people were optimistic because they were hoping for something better. They had been oppressed for 35 years. They Iraqi people they have not received anything other than pain, become backwards in everything, no services, no electricity, no health care. The most we are using until today are Saddam Hussein’s laws. Everything has gotten worse.
We wish that the occupation would leave in the fastest possible way. Withdraw all their troops out of Iraq. We feel and we see that this is the only solution for the Iraqi people.
Swanson: And do most Iraqis agree with that?
Hussein: We are in the union organization as a union force. We believe that. And we have taken our efforts and discussions to the Parliament and to the government and so this moment we demand the withdrawal of the occupation.
Swanson: In the United States they tell us a lot of strange stories. They told us about weapons of mass destruction, they told us about the attacks of September 11 in the United States in 2001 which Iraq had nothing to do with. Then they told us a lot about the Iraqi people and that we are there for the Iraqi people and their democracy. But recently we don’t hear that so much. Recently we hear that we must occupy Iraq for the US troops, for the US soldiers. To benefit them we must occupy Iraq. When you hear Congress members say why they have to vote for more money, for longer occupation, they say, “This is for the troops.” So it’s not for weapons of mass destruction . . .
Swanson: What do you think of these reasons for continuing the occupation?
Hussein: I want to first understand. The money? The authorization of money in Congress is to help the troops?
Swanson: This is what they tell us. It doesn’t make any sense to me. They say . . .
Hussein: Let me tell you the opinion of the people.
Swanson: Yes, please.
Hussein: It is as simple as this sentence: America came for the oil. They are all excuses. It was possible they could have removed Saddam Hussein in the first war, but he actually gave them privileges in the area, in the Middle East, and many people think that Saddam gave them a signature on a blank piece of paper. And as a result, Saddam stayed and he managed to oppress and stop the uprising. Everyone knows that America has interest in the area whether it was geographical location for the troops in addition to what Iraq has in not just oil but other resources, Iraq resources. Because Iraq’s land is rich with many metals.
And now we have a rumor that I don’t know how strong it is that we have mercury, that Iraq is very rich in red mercury which is the most rare in the world and still has not been discovered. Therefore, we think that America has interests.
And the evidence is that we have been suffering for years from the destruction. It could have throughout the four years, America could have returned the electricity to the Iraqi people, cleaned up the area, provided healthy water, paved the destroyed roads. They have cancelled the whole entire sewer system. Where is America when we are having all this destruction?
Swanson: Nowhere. I know you have another appointment so I want to thank you very, very much for talking to me. And as you tour the United States, I encourage you very strongly to tell people what the Iraqi people believe. Because there are Americans who believe the Iraqis want the occupation.
Hussein: Thank you for coming and your support. The Iraqi people and the unions have given me a message. It is from the heart and the core of my belief and my work. Thank you very much.
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