US FOMENTING DIVISIONS BETWEEN SHIA AND SUNNI

From the first days of the US-British invasion of Iraq, oil workers have resisted foreign occupation.

This is according to Hassan Juma'a Awad, writing in the Guardian, Friday February 18, 2005.

Hassan Juma'a Awad is general secretary of Iraq's Southern Oil Company Union and president of the Basra Oil Workers' Union

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1417222,00.html

Awad writes: "We see it as our duty to defend the country's resources. We reject and will oppose all moves to privatise our oil industry and national resources. We regard this privatisation as a form of neo-colonialism, an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation."

"The occupation has deliberately fomented a sectarian division of Sunni and Shia. We never knew this sort of division before. Our families intermarried, we lived and worked together. And today we are resisting this brutal occupation together, from Falluja to Najaf to Sadr City.

"We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don't want a timetable - this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society."