"Democratic" Spanish Communists Support Iraq Terrorism

The Alfonso Comín Foundation, a Spanish Communist liberation-theology group named in honor of a notorious agitator, awarded its 2007 International Prize to one Mada al Hadeethi, "the co-founder of the Iraqi National Foundation Congress of resistance to the occupation." Past recipients include the late PSUC political commissar Gregorio López Raimundo, School of the Americas Watch, "the innocent people of Iraq" (in 1991), Abbé Pierre, "the Palestinian people" (1988), and "the Nicaraguan people" (in 1984).

Supporters of the Iraqi National Foundation Congress on the net include the UK Socialist Worker, the UK Socialist Review, Common Dreams, Indymedia, Counterpunch, the Workers World Party, and, of course, our friends at the Huffington Post and the Guardian. That is, the ususl suspects. Now we know who we're dealing with.

And in Spain? The Iraqi National Foundation Congress is supported by our old friends at CEOSI, the National Campaign against the Occupation and for Sovereignty in Iraq. The CEOSI, if you'll recall, has been inviting "representatives of the Iraqi resistance" to Spain for the last three years, and is actively collecting funds "for health care purposes." And who's behind the CEOSI? The United Left, the Spanish Communist Party, and the pro-Communist union Workers Commissions.

Now, no one in Spain claims to be more democratic than our local Communists. (They were against Franco forty years ago, don't you know.) So it is contradictory when they invite representatives of the Iraqi "resistance," who justify and practice terrorism against both Allied troops and their fellow Iraqis, as their honored guests--and actually help them to raise money.

The so-called Iraqi resistance kills people, American, British, and Iraqi. And the Spanish Communists support them through the CEOSI.

Apology for terrorism is illegal in Spain, and an ETA supporter would be immediately prosecuted for speaking in favor of the organization, much less for raising money for it. And the Political Parties Act says that organizations which support terrorism are illegal in Spain. Looks like forming a party that is speaking in favor of and raising money for a terrorist organization whose first priority is killing American troops would be apology for terrorism, along with a violation of the Political Parties Act, no?

I guess it isn't, though, if you're a democratic Spanish Communist, and if the Socialist Zapatero central government (along with the current governments of Catalonia and Barcelona) in power needs your support in the Congress of Deputies.

La Vanguardia has decided that it's going to interview everybody that the Iraqi "resistance" sends to Spain for propaganda and fund-raising; they already interviewed a Baath Party spokesman in October.

So on November 9, La Vanguardia ran an interview with Ms. Al Hadeethi of the CEOSI-supported Iraqi National Foundation Congress (La Vangua gets it wrong and calls them the Iraqi National Congress, which is a very different kettle of fish). On their back page in their daily featured spot. At least this time La Vanguardia's interviewer (Lluís Amiguet) does not fawn all over her, as they did when they interviewed the Baath party representative.

We'll cut to the chase and give you the best part first:

Interviewer: Do you justify armed resistance?
al Hadeethi: According to international law (article 51 of the United Nations Declaration), we have the right to defend ourselves against an invading army; we demand that resolution 1546 of the UN Security Council be applied.

Yep, she justifies it. She's supporting terrorism, and La Vanguardia is giving her a public platform to do it.

Here's some good stuff from the rest of the interview:

I: Who would be capable of planting a bomb in a market and killing hundreds of innocents?
al H: The Americans.

I: That would cause chaos, which would hurt them.
al H: It benefits them, because they want to provoke the division of the country, and the first phase is dividing us and firing up factions, according to their plans. And they pay mercenaries, who pay other Iraqis to plant the bombs. These bombs divide us and prevent us Iraqis from reorganizing ourselves and standing up to the neocolonial invasion.

I: I don't think it is the way you say it is.
al H: The bombs cause fear and pain and prepare the Iraqis for the next step, which will be creating three states where there was one before. They are trying to divide us into three states that will be easier to control, because while there is a drop of petroleum, the US will not leave Iraq...It is no accident that the US and Al Qaeda arrived together; they need one another to justify their violence and the occupation.

I: What does your political activity consist of?
al H: We used to meet daily to unmask the neocolonial operation that the occupation has caused. But the coordination of resistance groups in which I participate has had to reduce our meetings, because they persecute us and arrest us.

I: What is this discourse of occupation?
al H: It is banal democracy. Simply, the oil companies that are friends of the Bushes have divided up our petroleum reserves supported by an army of mercenaries that is paid by the American taxpayers. They say they have brought us democracy and freedom, and what they have done is simply steal our oil.

I: You have had free elections.
al H: Under American military occupation and that of its allies! What sarcasm! Would you call elections free in your country if it was occupied by another? All the ideological discourse of democracy and freedom is a pantomime to justify the division of our natural resources. It is a division that the Bushes have been preparing for years.

I: You voted for your government.
al H: The Iraqi government are puppets who only meet with Washington's permission, and I know because I have cooperated with the Ministry of Justice, and it is to laugh: they ask permission from the CIA to go to the bathroom.

La Vanguardia gives them a propaganda outlet, the CEOSI sends them money and moral support, the Communists and the CEOSI are the same people, and the Zapatero government depends on Communist support. Something stinks.