Trade Union Solidarity Committee - Statement Against the War

3 October 2001

We strongly condemn the killing of civilians in the terrorist attacks carried out in the US on 11 September 2001, and all other acts of terrorism against innocent civilians.

We believe it is crucially important to give justice to the victims of such attacks as well as eliminate the causes of acts of terrorism to prevent them from occurring in future.

We note that US policies in the so-called Middle East have played a major role in leading to the attacks of September 11. In particular:

1. From 1979 onwards, the US funded, armed and trained Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and other jihadi groups in Afghanistan through the Pakistani ISI, which it also supported. Even on 27 September 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported that former president George Bush, the father of the present President George Bush (Jr), still has substantial business connections with the bin Laden family.
2. The US has undermined secular, democratic movements and governments - for example, overthrowing the democratic government of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and installing the brutal dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlevi, providing unlimited support to the suppression of the Palestinian liberation struggle by the Zionist state of Israel, and so on. These policies have fuelled the growth of fundamentalist and communal forces.
3. The US and UK have bombed Iraq repeatedly for the past ten years, killing over 200,000 Iraqis. In addition, US-imposed sanctions have killed at least 1 million civilians, more than half of them children. In August 1998, the US bombed a pharmeceutical factory producing the bulk of Sudan's life-saving medicines, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of people - again, many of them children - have died. These and similar atrocities fuel the anger which produces recruits for terrorist groups.

We condemn the racist and communal attacks against Arabs, Muslims and others which have followed the attacks of September 11. We oppose all attacks on civil liberties carried out in the name of the war against terrorism, as well as the diversion of tax-payers' money from healthcare, education and social welfare to military budgets.

We strongly oppose any military strikes against Afghanistan, Iraq or any other country. These would only result in the killing of more innocent civilians as well as retaliatory acts of terrorism against civilians in the countries carrying out or supporting the strikes. Instead, we call on the UN to:

1. produce a consistent definition of 'acts of terrorism' which does not depend on the race, religion, nationality or any other characteristic of the perpetrator or victims; and
2. speedily set up a permanent International Criminal Court, as resolved in 1998, which can try, and if convicted punish, perpetrators of acts of terrorism and other crimes against humanity, as well as those who provide them with material support.

We call upon trade unions and workers everywhere to support these demands in order to avert a catastrophic escalation in violence and terrorism worldwide.

Trade Union Solidarity Committee,
c/o Blue Star Employees Federation,
6 Neelkanth Apartments,
Gokuldas Pasta Road,
Dadar (E), Mumbai 400 014. [India]

(The Trade Union Solidarity Committee (TUSC) is a co-ordination of about 25 independent/unaffiliated/internal unions in the Bombay region.)

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