BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:Indybay-56553 SEQUENCE:56553 CREATED:20050128T220400Z DESCRIPTION:Iraqi Elections = Death for Iraqis & US Troops = Oil for US Corporations Troops Home Now! End the Occupation and Empire! Sunday January 30 4pm: Demonstration and Vigil 5pm: Procession Market and Van Ness, SF Join us in publicly opposing the sham elections in Iraq. The Bush Administration is using these elections in an attempt to legitimize the continued US occupation. People can not vote in Iraq without fear of death. Democratic participation and self-determination have been denied. This is not Democracy, it is Death. The Elections Must be Opposed. The elections will mean more blood spilled for Oil. On December 22, 2004 the Iraqi Finance Minister announced at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. The catch? The Finance Minister's Shiite political party will first have to gain the majority in the new government. Thus, the elections go forward, the Shiites get power and the Bush Administration and its Corporate War Profiteers get Iraq's oil. We are a group of friends active in anti-war, direct action and global justice movements who felt called to initiate a public demonstration to express our outrage, grief and resistance. We will mourn the victims of the war, occupation and policies of empire. We will read aloud the testimonies and stories of Iraqis living under the occupation. Their voices will not be heard in these elections. Let us come together in the streets, to listen, to give voice, to call for an end to the bloodshed. BACKGROUND: Calling Sundays looming election in Iraq a "grand moment" in history, President Bush said at a press conference on Wednesday--a day in which more American troops died than any other day of the war, "The fact that they're voting, in itself, is successful." Antonia Juhasz in an article published on Alternet on January 27 writes: On Dec. 22, 2004, Iraqi Finance Minister Abdel Mahdi told a handful of reporters and industry insiders at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that Iraq wants to issue a new oil law that would open Iraq's national oil company to private foreign investment. As Mahdi explained: "So I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies." In other words, Mahdi is proposing to privatize Iraq's oil and put it into American corporate hands. While few in the American media other than Emad Mckay of Inter Press Service reported on -- or even attended -- Mahdiís press conference, the announcement was made with U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson at Mahdi's side. It was intended to send a message -- but to whom? It turns out that Abdel Mahdi is running in the Jan. 30 elections on the ticket of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIR), the leading Shiite political party. While announcing the selling-off of the resource which provides 95 percent of all Iraqi revenue may not garner Mahdi many Iraqi votes, but it will unquestionably win him tremendous support from the U.S. government and U.S. corporations. Mahdi's SCIR is far and away the front-runner in the upcoming elections, particularly as it becomes increasingly less possible for Sunnis to vote because the regions where they live are spiraling into deadly chaos. If Bush were to suggest to Iraqís Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that elections should be called off, Mahdi and the SCIR's ultimate chances of victory will likely decline. Thus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal with the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings in Iraq. Based on all reports from both U.S. military and Iraqi officials, the elections this Sunday could be a blood bath for Iraqis and American troops alike. They are also certain to be far from representative. Democratic elections simply cannot be held under these conditions, nor conditions in which the U.S. government and its corporations exercise such dominant economic and political control. Dahr Jamail reported on January 26 from Iraq: The high commission for elections of Iraq has still not announced the location of polling stations due to security fears, but many school buildings around Baghdad are being cordoned off with sand barriers, concrete blocks and razor wire. "I feel unsafe in my own home now, even more than before," said Hashim al-Obeidy, a retired engineer. A school building near his house is being prepared as a polling station. "I watched the American soldiers building these barriers. And now I am afraid mortars will hit my home if the school is attacked." Standing outside his house in central Baghdad, he pointed to a row of large sand barriers outside an old yellow school building with damaged walls and cracked paint. "They already severely damaged our school system, they haven't rebuilt anything, and now they will create more destruction in the schools," he said. Many Iraqis continue to express frustration over what they see as illegitimate elections. Prof. Shawket Daoud, a computer science specialist who now works for the government, said uncertainty over polling booths and the fear of violence was not the only problem. "Why vote when we don't even know who is running yet?" More than 7,000 candidates on the electoral lists have opted to remain anonymous prior to polling day. At least eight political leaders thought to be candidates have been killed. Many others receive death threats. Abu Sabah, a grocery stall owner near the Karrada district of Baghdad says he is simply confused about the election. The elections feel rushed and a list of at least 83 coalitions of political parties with mostly anonymous candidates makes no sense, he says. "Who says we should have elections for people we don't even know during occupation, martial law and in a war zone," he said. http://alternet.org/waroniraq/21102/\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/01/28/56553.php SUMMARY:Oppose Sham Elections in Iraq--Sunday 4pm, Market + Van Ness LOCATION: URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/01/28/56553.php DTSTART:20050131T000000Z DTEND:20050131T030000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR