Stop the War Annual Conference

It was a busy and full day at the Stop the War Coalition Annual Conference in Camden, London. Around 350 delegates from England, Scotland and Wales were packed into the meeting with stalls from a range of organisations ranging from CND to socialist booksellers. The day was divided into sessions on various themes with prominent speakers on each subject, punctuated by various resolutions being taken on the issues being discussed. These themes ranged from ‘Obama and the War on Terror’ and ‘Troops out of Afghanistan’ to ‘Palestine’, ‘Muslims and Civil Liberties’ ‘Iraq’ and ‘Building Stop the War’ – I spoke in the last session. Speakers included Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, Lindsey German, Seamus Milne of the Guardian, Mohamed Asif (Afghan Society) Daud Abdullah, John Rees, Sarah Colborne (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign) Karma Nabulsi (Palestinian journalist) George Galloway MP, Craig Murray (former UK Ambassador to Uzbekhistan) Walter Wolfgang (Labour CND) and Tahmeena Bax (student activist).

The resolutions called for continuing action on Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. One called for support for the EDO Decommissioners who put an arms factory in Brighton out of production and who will be put on trial soon. Another called for the ending of US drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan and included a quote from Amnesty International on this: “A pattern of killings carried out with these weapons appears to reflect a US government policy condoning extra judicial executions.” There was a resolution calling for support for a national demonstration in Edinburgh to coincide with the meeting of NATO Defence ministers (13th to 17th November) there. A resolution on Iraq stated: “We oppose the puppet government in Iraq; we oppose the economic, political and military agreements between the US/UK and Iraq, which are designed to guarantee the exploitation of Iraq’s oil wealth by US/UK companies and to ensure that Iraq remains a client state of the US...” A resolution on police violence stated: “In the light of this escalation of violence (referring to the G20) by the police, the STWC must take every action to ensure our lawful and democratic right to protest is respected. Stop the War should also support the demands for a full and independent enquiry into the death of Ian Tomlinson, and into policing of demonstrations.” A resolution calling for a national petition to be circulated calling for NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan was supported. Walter Wolfgang also presented a resolution calling for STWC to work with CND on campaigning against US missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as the closure of the Fylingdales and Menwith Hill bases in Yorkshire, and for the abandonment of Trident. Other resolutions supported the student occupations over the last few months and called for the slogans ‘Jobs not Bombs’ and ‘Welfare not Warfare’ to be used on demos. There were also resolutions calling for support for Gaza and the Palestinian cause. STWC has now decided that Gaza and Palestine will be one of its main concerns in future.

Two of the best speakers in my estimation were Craig Murray who asked for support next Tuesday, when he is giving evidence on torture before the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights at 1.45pm in Portcullis House in, what he thought was very ironic, the Thatcher Room. He believes that he will be given a rough ride by the committee. I intend to be there to support him. He spoke about the process of terrorising the Muslim community now being rolled out to terrorise everyone, or at least those who protested. He indicated that the intelligence community, where he has many links, told him that there was no intelligence whatsoever regarding the recent arrests of Pakistanis in Manchester over an alleged bomb plot – the Prime Minister even went on television to confirm it. Murray believes it was a cynical piece of news management as Jacqui Smith’s expenses and Ian Tomlinson’s death had been the main items the day before. It was for the same reason that they were released without charge on Budget Day.

Seamus Milne said that the War on Terror has now lasted longer than World War II. In contrast to New Labour’s assertions, he believed that the occupation of Afghanistan was increasing the risk of terrorism on UK streets, not decreasing it. But he believed that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan had made clear the limits of US power – this was because of both the internal resistance in both countries and the global resistance to the wars. The US had just changed the terminology from War on Terror to Overseas Contingency Operation. The centre of the resistance to the Afghan war was Pakistan and if Afghanistan was Obama’s Vietnam, then Pakistan could be his Cambodia. He believed that a war on Iran by the US and Israel was quite possible. The effect of Gaza etc had been to remobilise the Muslim community in the UK. The key to ending the wars was public opinion in the aggressor states – the US and UK.

It was an interesting day and covered a wide political and geographical range in the Arc of War from Palestine to Afghanistan. One of the only contentious resolutions was the attempt to allow Hands off the People of Iran to affiliate, as had been tried two years ago. The Green delegates voted in favour of this, along with the Communist Party of Great Britain and some others, but it was heavily defeated. One of the most facile speeches I ever heard against the resolution was given by a young Iranian (whose parents were political refugees) and whose view was that resistance to the Teheran regime could not come from outside the country. If people wanted to protest, then he suggested that they flew to Iran and did it there – it would only cost £300! Apart from that there seemed to be general unanimity on most issues. A synopsis of my speech to the conference is here
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/mediacentre/releases/26-04-2009-joseph-healy-St
op-the-War.html

Interesting also that the attacks on Climate Camp at G20 were mentioned several times and STWC have issued a statement that should the police use the riot police, kettling or photographing demonstrators at the Palestinian Solidarity Demonstration on May 16th, the STWC will end all cooperation with the police. The conference was determined that the right to protest would be upheld and that both the Muslim community and the anti-war movement needed to protect each other. As one speaker said: "We cannot function with them and they cannot function without us."