‘Hands Off Iraqi Oil’, read the banner of protest outside the Middle East Energy Conference in London yesterday.
At the conference was Iraqi puppet Oil Minister, Hussein al Shahristani, plus US/UK government ministers, and Shell and BP oil executives seeking ‘Production Sharing Agreements’ (PSA) for control of Iraqi oil supplies.
Shahristani has declared Iraq ‘open for business’, and invited oil companies to invest and prosper.
The protest, organised by Hands Off Iraqi Oil, called for an ‘immediate end to the military and economic occupation of Iraq’, pointing out that international oil companies, and the British and US governments, have been pushing for a law which will hand control of Iraq’s oil to foreign companies.
However, the Iraqi resistance forces and ‘opposition at every level of Iraqi society has prevented the legal framework for this being established, despite massive military, political and economic pressure from the British and US occupiers’, said Gabriel Carlyle, on the picket line outside Chatham House.
Carlyle continued: ‘This protest was organised at short notice when we found out that the big oil companies like Shell and BP were meeting the Iraqi Oil Minister.
‘Even before the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US and UK forces, Shell and BP were working with other big oil companies on plans to seize control of Iraq’s oil.
‘It is believed that half of Iraq’s oil is as yet unexploited.’
The occupying powers are pressurising the Iraqi government, which depends on the occupation for its existence, to sign long term PSA contracts for the control of the development and depletion of Iraq’s oil reserves for 25 years.
Once signed, PSAs will not be re-negotiable.
Shahristani has also refused to recognise Iraqi trade unions in the oil industry, has shut down union offices and issued decrees for Iraq’s national oil company not to negotiate with unions.
Despite the small number and non obstructive nature of their picket, a senior police officer (number 2073 – he would not give his name), threatened the protesters with arrest under section 14 of the Public Order Act.