International Socialists

Brian Roper

The short answer is: not much! The Government claims that it is opposed to Bush’s war unless the US obtains approval from the UN Security Council. It claims that UN inspectors should be given more time to ascertain whether or not Saddam Hussein really does possess weapons of mass destruction.

But if the US invades Iraq – and this may well be happening by the time you read this article – the New Zealand Labour Government is unlikely to do more than politely express mild disapproval to the Bush regime. In the meantime it is happy to have a New Zealand naval frigate in the Gulf helping with the “War on terrorism” but not, we are supposed to believe, with the invasion of Iraq!

Blood on their hands
The reality is that this Government, like the National Government before it, has blood on its hands. The murderous sanctions against Iraq, led by the US and imposed by the UN, have killed around one million people. Ever since the Gulf War in 1991, British and US aircraft have continued to bomb the infrastructure of Iraqi society, destroying water, sewerage and electricity facilities, and creating conditions in which killer diseases, such as diarrhoea, run rife.

It has been the longest running bombing campaign since the Second World War and yet what have New Zealand governments done to oppose it? Nothing of course! And they have continued to support sanctions that deny food and vital medical supplies from reaching the Iraqi people, while at the same time doing nothing to effect the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. It is an absolute disgrace that Helen Clark and the Labour Government continue to support US led sanctions that constitute one of the truly great “crimes against humanity” of the past 50 years.

Equally disgraceful is the manner in which Helen Clark and the Government raced to join Bush’s so-called “War on Terror.” The Bush administration said that it was to be a litmus test of whether governments were to be considered friends or foes of the United States. Helen Clark made very clear, by committing SAS troops to Bush’s vindictive war against one of the world’s poorest countries (Afghanistan), that she could be relied upon to be a close ally of US imperialism. Many more innocent civilians have been killed in the war against Afghanistan than in the tragic terrorist attacks of S11. And New Zealand troops have helped to kill them.

Best friends with Uncle Sam?
So why is the Labour Government so keen to be best friends with George W. Bush, even if this is at the cost of supporting genocidal sanctions and illicit bombing campaigns? The reason is simple: free trade. One of the major unstated objectives of this government is signing up to a free trade agreement with the US Government. In order to do this they have to prove themselves to be “reliable allies.”

This places the Government in a very difficult position given the extremely high percentage of New Zealanders who are opposed to the war (opinion polls indicated that between 66 to 71 percentage opposed the war in the week to February 20). So it has tried to have it both ways by voicing very mild opposition to the war unless it is endorsed by the UN Security Council, while in reality doing absolutely nothing of any real significance to oppose it.

What should the Government be doing?
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out what sorts of things the Government could and should be doing if it really was committed to stopping this war and improving the lives of the Iraqi people. It could:

• End support for the sanctions;

• Withdraw the frigate and all other military personnel immediately;

• Actively oppose the war even if it is sanctioned by the UN Security Council;

• Cease all negotiations for a free trade agreement with the US;

• Provide aid and other humanitarian support for the Iraqi people (such as the provision of food, medical supplies, etc).

But Clark can’t do any of these things without endangering her “very very close” friendship with the United States. It’s wrong therefore to think we can change the Labour Government’s stance just by convincing them of the “unjustness” of war against Iraq (as some in the movement have argued). It is only through a large and militant anti-war campaign (particularly one involving organised workers through their unions) that we can force Labour to act.

We need to increase the pressure
Helen Clark contemptuously dismissed some of the largest protests in New Zealand for over 20 years, in which the “silent majority” vocally expressed their opposition to Bush’s war for oil, saying that they “were smaller than those against the Vietnam War.”

Actually this is a gross distortion of the truth. The protest movement in Aotearoa and internationally is the biggest in history to take place before war has even broken out. What is particularly sickening is the fact that she has not voiced any real criticism of Bush’s war for oil.

This means that we need to greatly increase the pressure on our government in order to make them listen and oppose this war. We need to build bigger protests, encourage mass civil disobedience, push for our unions to take action, and organise in our localities while coordinating our efforts both nationally and internationally.