Over the last half a century or so, no anti-imperialist struggle has been so intense, fierce and protracted as the present one in Iraq except the struggles by the Vietnamese and the Palestinian peoples. The present struggle by the Iraqis began in 2002 and is still continuing. Despite the heaviest price paid in terms of human life and wealth of the country, the heroic freedom fighters of this country are not yielding any ground to the US occupiers and their stooges. The fighting is on in the streets and lanes, and house to house, against the imperialist mercenaries. In fact, when the US imperialists and their British accomplices were overjoyed at occupying this disarmed small country in a short time through demonic attack applying menacingly mass destructive missiles and bombs, they could least imagine in dream that they would have to face such stiff resistance from the people of the occupied country. To liberate their motherland, the Iraqis are no doubt sacrificing lives (so far about 100,000) including infants and old people. But at the same time, many lives of the imperialist raiders are also being lost. This has left the imperialist occupiers bewildered as also mortally frightened for the price they have been paying as ‘messiah’ to deliver their own cooked up ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ to the Iraqis. And this heavy price is being paid by none but the lone superpower in the world possessing deadly armoury. The situation in Iraq is so volcanic for the imperialist occupiers that their soldiers do not dare to come out of the barracks, many of them are even refusing to go to war, some are committing suicide out of despair; nor do their Iraqi stooges take courage to patrol the streets openly. Even their political props are being killed. Already several UN representatives, Mayor of an Iraqi city, and the Vice-President of the US installed interim government have fallen to bullets of the Iraqi guerrillas.

Imperialist motive behind holding election

Having realized that it was impossible to suppress the Iraqi freedom struggle by either bullets or bribes, and in the face of mounting loss of their soldiers, the US-led imperialists floated the call of elections. Actually behind the much trumpeted and noisy slogan of fulfilling their so-called pious wish to introduce ‘democracy’ after delivering ‘freedom’ to Iraq, what these imperialists had in their hidden agenda was to legitimize their occupation of this country in the eyes of the world. This is the process with which the US imperialists may hope to hoax the world, but this is nothing but replica of what they attempted in Vietnam in the sixties, in so many countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America in the preceding decades, and in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Ukraine in the recent years. They bombarded and destroyed the countries killing innocents in thousands, occupied them, and then imposed puppet governments through show of elections steered and controlled by them.

With this end in mind the US-UK imperialists put up Iraq on the same agenda. After this country was devastated, the US imperialists hand-picked the CIA fostered Iyad Allwawi and smuggled him into governmental power of Iraq under supervision of the US administrator Paul Bremer. Bremer then prepared a set of more than 100 US interest-bound rules and regulations for administration, handed them over to Allawi and left Iraq. Fortified with these rules and regulations, in service to his US masters, Allawi declared election and then held on 30th January last under armed dictation and surveillance of the imperialist army.

How the election was held

The elections were held not under the Iraqi sovereign laws and rules but under Bremer-framed rules and regulations irreversible in any way, with active monitoring by the US-British and Iraqi soldiers. This is totally contrary to the international Geneva Conventions which the US imperialists and their British associates blatantly defied. These Conventions say that no occupying force has any authority to change the law of the occupied country thereby rendering the elections violative of international law.

This apart, democracy in a country presupposes the sovereignty that the country must possess. And this sovereignty in turn presupposes independence. So without independence, this sovereignty is a misnomer, likewise the talk of ‘democracy’ without this sovereignty is not only meaningless but a hoax as well. Viewed from this angle, in Iraq which is groaning under domination of the US-led imperialists, the country where there is no independence of the people, not to speak of sovereignty, can any democracy worth the name be established ? No amount of imperialist harangues can justify this, no high voltage media hype of theirs can make the world believe this.

Bremer-framed rules and regulations had two objectives. One was to ensure exploitation of all major enterprises of Iraq including oil and other resources, and the other was to choose and appoint a purchased puppet ruler like CIA-trained Allawi to secure the US interest even through elections. After these laws were imposed, the US imperialists announced elections to establish their ‘democracy’ and deliver so-called ‘freedom’ to the Iraqis.

It is quite imaginable, therefore, how free and fair were the elections held under such rules and regulations. This is why, even the US observers had to admit that there was no climate for election in Iraq. The bourgeois press too held the similar view before elections. That it was simply a farcical election was evident from the fact that no groups or political parties controlled by the Shias or the Sunnis contested in this so-called election, though the imperialists desperately tried to divide the Iraqi people in order to weaken their united anti-imperialist struggle. All the parties or groups like Iraqi National Foundation Congress, a broad-based civilian political group having influence over large number of Iraqis outside the religious groups, the Association of Muslim Scholars, the Islamic Party of Iraq totally boycotted the elections. Not only this, all of these groups and parties called upon the people of Iraq, the youth and students to fight a heroic battle against the US-led imperialist mercenaries. It was such bizarre an election that there were no candidates or political parties, save and except the US puppet Iyad Allawi and his party on the field ! This US lackey who got huge fund from the CIA was alone screened on TV, displayed in advertisement, in the street posters for publicity. The names of other candidates about 7,700 in number were said to be available only in the lists on the last days of campaign and that too on websites inaccessible to most Iraqis. It requires noting that these lists were prepared and approved by the US Administrator Bremer-appointed High Commission of Election. Hence, names of many a such candidate were not found in the list. What is more, the locations of most of the 5,300 polling stations were ‘secret’ even 12 hours before the polls. To these mysteriously ‘secret’ (or non-existent?) polling stations the ghost “voters” were carried by the US tanks and trucks. In many places both the US soldiers and the US-controlled Iraqi police dragged the unwilling voters to the booth with one hand on their arm, and the other on AK-47 rifle. There were no presiding officers in those ‘secret’ polling stations, nor were there any international observers. Still those who dared to cast votes having been ill-influenced or forced by the US-British occupiers’ media and the mercenaries with life in hand, did so without knowing who were the candidates they voted for. They were ghost candidates with phantom policies ! These US-chosen candidates, even if elected, would not have the power to alter US plans to colonize Iraq.

Such amazing ‘election’ was held in Iraq kept under domination of US imperialist troops since declaration of election date. All its borders were closed, traffick was banned, curfew was clamped on all the 18 districts with order of shoot-at-sight from the day prior to the elections till they were over. This is how the elections on the 30th were held! This is what US-imported “victory of democracy” meant, in which the imperialists wanted that the Iraqis must not seek independence! If this is democracy, it is democracy in a military straitjacket, as noted by a Western columnist.

After such “elections” were over, the imperialist chieftain George W Bush asserted that it was fair and free. The imperialist dominated media also reiterated this in refrain. But how ‘fair’ had they been was amply clear from the above. Such ‘fairness’ certificate is quite appropriate from a US President, like Bush who himself was elected, through a completely rigged election in 2000. Notwithstanding this certificate, it was a stark fact that 30th January Iraqi elections were thoroughly manipulated, led by US Ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. Who is this Negroponte ? It is he who as Ambassador to Honduras (1981-1985) became a menacing embodiment of terrorism and death squads and was famous for unleashing violent attacks on people of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. And Negroponte too performed his responsibility efficiently. He employed National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NFI) and International Republican Institute (IRI), the two infamous CIA-funded organizations set to destroy the democratic processes in the countries world over and have exactly done this in cooking up pre-calculated election results in Iraq.

Iraqis rejected the election

As regards the tale of ‘overwhelming’ polling of 60 to 72 per cent votes, the US-appointed High Commission for Election itself provided the best answer. The Commission which first supported Bush and his media hype, came back to senses and said that its reaction immediately after elections had been wrong, such conclusion had been reached at on simply verbal estimate and guess. The UN adviser to the Election Commission, Carlos Valenzuela too confirmed the above observation.

The fact is, notwithstanding the imperialist claim, the turnout of voters was very low. Over and above all the Sunni areas drawing totally blank, in many areas of the country even dominated by the Shias, the polling centres were closed or deserted. Ignoring the imperialist-laboured division between the Sunnis and the Shias, the people of Iraq as a whole refused to take part in voting to mark their opposition to occupation. This is also evident from the turnout of Iraqis abroad. About 80% of the eligible voters abroad did not vote even while they had no security concern. In the violent situation in Iraq where there were constant attacks of the guerrillas, the myth of the US claim of large turnout is easily exposed. It is to be noted that, as many as 260 attacks and nine suicide bombings took place on the election day killing six candidates and several US soldiers. The biggest attack was inflicted on the British soldiers since the invasion. About 100 of them (officially 15) were killed when a helicopter carrying them was destroyed by a missile strike which, according to ‘Daily Mirror’, was an act of the Iraqi guerrillas. And these were apart from the daily average of 70 attacks on the occupiers and their lackeys.

In reality, through this hoax of election, the US imperialists wanted to make their occupation perpetual, usurp the natural resources and fill the country with military bases. In Iraq the US imperialists have already built up as many as 14 military bases. These bases would serve as forces to keep Iraq under knees and also would bring the oil-rich West Asia within their target and grip. That this was a dire necessity was audaciously advised by a former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger long back while outlining the US policy in the Middle-East. He said, “Middle-East Oil is too important to be left to the hands of Arab”. This is also what the US imperialists call ”democratization” of the countries which are obviously not in their good books, which do not want to fall in line with their imperialist design. It is immaterial if the ruling cliques backed and bolstered up by the US are autocratic, fascistic, militaristic, fundamentalist, feudalistic, or monarchic, so long as they follow the US imperialist dictate. Who does not know that the rulers in Saudi Arabia are worst religious fundamentalists ruling the countries with all medieval laws and hence most undemocratic; Pakistan, Haiti are under military junta; Uganda under Idi Amin, Indonesia under Suharto, Chile under Pinnochet and so on, are countries ruled by butchers of democracy, sworn enemies of democratic norms and principles but they ruled their countries for long years in close relation with the so-called champions of democracy, the US imperialists. The US imperialists had intimate friendship with them, lent all support to these rulers in extorting the people, in torturing the people with repressive Acts. These countries even got military help from the US-led imperialists. Why ? Because these rulers served or have been still serving the imperialist end. But Iraq had to be devastated by falsely blaming it of possessing weapons of mass destruction or having links with the fundamentalist Al Qaeda and its terrorism. But the US-British imperialists could prove none of these allegations even after rummaging the nooks and corners of Iraq. In this context, it cannot but be noted that although the Iraqi ruler Suddam Hussein was a bourgeois nationalist and there was many a controversy centring round his rule, still he maintained a secular administration as admitted by the whole world, as distinct from many of the neighbouring medieval rulers, noted above. In fact, Iraq, the land of one of the most ancient Mespotemian civilizations with rich heritage was ruined and occupied because apart from the greed of the imperialist vultures to usurp its oil resources, this country led by Saddam Hussein had been emerging as a centre against imperialism in general, and against US imperialist international gangsterism, in particular. Noticeably, after the imperialist occupation of Iraq, the religious fundamentalism is rapidly raising its ugly head there. In other words, the US-led occupiers have been instigating to get it implanted in that country, a fact nakedly exposed to the world.

Hence this drama of elections, this import of ‘democracy’ in Iraq with so many claims about its success. Every independent reporter and analyst outside the control of Pentagon in Iraq held a completely different view. The people of Iraq, these independent observers realized, refused to accept that these imperialists from thousands of miles away, have any right to foist on and dictate the elections in their country, or could speak of ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’ for them. It is the Iraqi people who are the sole deciders of their destiny. The US-British imperialists have no right to speak for these creeds as they themselves are the worst transgressors of them, even in their own countries. The American people especially are engaged in a struggle against their imperialist rulers to retain their hard earned democracy and freedom and civil rights which are being systematically trampled and snatched away one after another by means of draconian Acts like Patriot II.

This also demonstrates the tragic outcome of this one-time bulwark of democracy and freedom now being turned into a butcher of democracy.

The Iraqi people are engaged in valiant fight to throw out the imperialists and their local hangers-on. In spite of the imperialist conspiracy to divide them communally, merciless killing of innocent people, inhuman tortures and repression under the open sky and in dark prisons like Abu Ghraib and such in Basra, the Iraqi people are firm in unity and have been putting up all-out resistance against the US imperialists and their lackeys, hundreds of them. This is encouraging to the freedom-loving people of the world. The bewildered US imperialists and their British accomplices have been forced to air a view that after the elections, if the Iraqis wanted them to leave Iraq, they would do so. But at the same time they have expressed the hope that the Iraqis might prefer them to stay back in their country, to be looted, exploited, enslaved and tortured more!

In conclusion, it is to be mentioned that this anti-imperialist freedom struggle which the Iraqis are valiantly waging is not their own struggle alone. It conduces to the fulfilment of the urges and aspirations of the freedom-loving toiling people of the whole world. In this sense it is the struggle of the people of the whole world. They must pursue this struggle to the end as the Vietnamese did inflicting a crushing blow to the imperialists led by the US. They shall win. At the same time they are to realize that any consistent and protracted anti-imperialist freedom struggle in the present era, let alone reach its desired goal, cannot even be led successfully under the nationalist bourgeois leadership. It is only with the Marxism-Leninism as the guiding ideology and genuine communist leadership at the core that its true culmination can be achieved, as we witnessed in China and Vietnam. So, the people of Iraq who are commendably carrying out this struggle against the US-UK imperialists should come to this realization and gear up their organization on this basis. Meanwhile, we, the toiling millions of India join the world humanity in support of this valiant fight of the Iraqis. We condemn at the same time the Indian ruling capitalist class and their political hangers-on who, along with other capitalist rulers of the world are brazenly praising the US imperialist imposed farce elections in Iraq. We pledge to organize vigorous movement in the country to force our rulers stand by the anti-imperialist freedom struggle of the Iraqis in tune with the anti-imperialist tradition of the Indian people.