Statement on 5 Years of War and Occupation of Iraq

The day of March 20 marks the fifth anniversary of the war on Iraq, conducted by the US army and its puppet allies.

This war represents the clearest proof on the character of imperialism as an aggressive system ready to occupy and kill millions of people for the sake of the profits of its transnational companies hungry for oil and natural resources.

It also presents a dangerous action that marginalized the United Nations and the Security Council when they refused to involve in an American war based on false pretexts of production and deployment of weapons of mass destruction by the Iraqi regimes before March 2003.

The slogans of democratization, abolishing weapons of mass destruction and fighting terrorism were used to justify an unjustifiable war. Nevertheless, few were tricked by this propaganda. Millions of people, primarily youth, went down into the streets of the world to refuse this war.

The World Federation of Democratic Youth, as an anti-imperialist international youth organization had the analysis from the very first moment that this war only aims at more exploitation of the resources for the benefits of the big capitalist companies, and that it strongly violates the right of the people to live in independent countries without any kind of occupation and interventions.

History proved the correctness of the people who opposed the war, and of our analysis about the aims of this imperialist war.

Occupation has brought huge devastation to Iraq. According to recent statistics, more than 600, 000 Iraqi civilians were killed. Other 2,225,000 became internal refugees forced to leave their towns and villages into other places according to their religious sects. 2,500,000 more people became refugees outside Iraq, mainly in Syria and Jordan.

“Freeing” Iraq from its previous regime is freeing the Iraqi neighborhoods from their residents. One of the greatest crimes against humanity is being practiced against people who suffered long years of dictatorship and oppression followed by 5 years of massive killing, displacement and occupation by the US army and its allies. In fact, the aggressive practices of the previous regime against its own people and against its neighbors were supported by USA for long years before the war.

It is also important to mention that the unemployment rate is around 60% and the average hours of electricity is less than 6 hours per day, in a country that has the second reserve of oil in the world. 70% of Iraqis lack pure water supply and 28% of its children suffer malnutrition. The child death rate is one of the highest in the world.

Those numbers represent a little about the horrible situation that occupation has brought to this country and its youth. They also give an indication on the nature of our “new world order”, the neo-liberal imperialist system searching for more and more exploitation by all military, economic and political means.

However, the Iraqi people including the Iraqi youth are rejecting this war strongly, and are more involved in the national resistance against occupation. The majority of the Iraqi people oppose the presence of foreign occupying troops in Iraq. The number of operations against the occupation armies recently reached 173 operations per day. This number shows that resistance now is a massive popular activity conducted by people fighting for the full independence of their country. The democratic and progressive youth who originally opposed the dictatorship are continuing their struggles against occupation, and are getting more involved in the national resistance that will bring the heroic victory for the Iraqi people.

WFDY reasserts its support of the Iraqi national resistance in its just struggle for the independence of Iraq, and expresses its solidarity with the Iraqi youth and the support for their causes.

WFDY also calls for the widest support around the world for the Iraqi people, and asks for massive protests against the occupation of USA and its allies in Iraq, and for organizing solidarity activities with the Iraqi youth.