Peace and the new corporate liberation theology

Although no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq - stunning new evidence has revealed that Saddam Hussein was planning a weapons programme. (Like I was planning to win Olympic Gold in synchronised swimming). No doubt all will be revealed in the free and fair trial of Saddam Hussein that's coming up soon in the New Iraq.

But we won’t learn how the US and Britain plied him with money and material assistance at the time he was carrying out murderous attacks on Iraqi Kurds and Shias, or that the 12,000 page report submitted by Saddam Hussein’s government to the UN, was censored by the United States because it lists 24 US corporations that participated in Iraq's pre-Gulf War nuclear and conventional weapons programme. (They include Bechtel, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett Packard, International Computer Systems and Unisys.)

So Iraq has been “liberated”, its people subjugated and its markets “freed” in outright violation of international law. Once Iraq has been handed over to the multi-nationals, a mild dose of genuine democracy won't do any harm. In fact it might be good PR for the Corporate version of Liberation Theology, otherwise known as New Democracy.

Corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, the company that US Vice-president Dick Cheney once headed, have won huge contracts for “reconstruction” work. A brief c.v. of any one of these corporations would give us a lay person's grasp of how it all works – not just in Iraq, but all over the world. Say we pick Bechtel - an old business acquaintance of Saddam Hussein. Many of their dealings were negotiated by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. In 1988, after Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds, Bechtel signed contracts with his government to build a dual-use chemical plant in Baghdad.

Bechtel has been awarded reconstruction contracts in Iraq worth over a billion dollars, which include contracts to re-build power generation plants, electrical grids, water supply, sewage systems, and airport facilities. Never mind revolving doors, this - if it weren't so drenched in blood - would be a bedroom farce.

And Bechtel has footprints around the world. It first attracted international attention when it signed a contract with Hugo Banzer, the Bolivian dictator, to privatise the city of Cochabamba’s water supply Bechtel immediately raised the water price bringing hundreds of thousands of those who couldn't pay Bechtel's bills into the streets, paralysing the city. Martial law was declared. Bechtel was forced to flee its offices but it is now negotiating a multi-million dollar exit payment from the Bolivian government for the loss of profits.

In India, Bechtel along with General Electric are the new owners of the notorious and currently defunct Enron power project. The Enron contract, which legally binds the Government of the State of Maharashtra to pay Enron a sum of 30 billion dollars, was the largest contract ever signed in India. Enron was not shy to boast about the millions of dollars it had spent to "educate" Indian politicians and bureaucrats. The Enron contract in Maharashtra, which was India's first “fast-track” private power project, has come to be known as the most massive fraud in the country's history. (Enron was another of the Republican Party's major campaign contributors.) Enron’s electricity was so expensive that the government decided it was cheaper not to buy electricity and pay Enron damages under the contract. The government of one of the world’s poorest countries was paying Enron US$220 million a year not to produce electricity.

With Enron’s demise, Bechtel and GE are suing the Indian Government for 5.6 billion US dollars for lost profits. Enron actually invested a tiny fraction of this sum in the project. The arbitration between Bechtel, GE and the Government of India is taking place right now in London.

Think about it: The notional profits of a single corporate project would be enough to provide a hundred days of employment a year at minimum wages (calculated at a weighted average across different states) for 25 million people. That's five million more than the population of Australia. That is the scale of the horror of neo-liberalism.

Invaded and occupied Iraq has been made to pay out 200 million dollars in "reparations" for lost profits to corporations like Halliburton, Shell, Mobil, Nestle, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Toys R Us. That's apart from its 125 billion dollar sovereign debt forcing it to turn to the IMF.

In New Iraq, privatisation has broken new ground. The US Army is increasingly recruiting private mercenaries to help in the occupation. The advantage with mercenaries is that when they're killed they're not included in the US soldiers' body count. It helps to manage public opinion. Prisons have been privatised and torture has been privatised.

Other attractions in New Iraq include newspapers being shut down. Television stations bombed. Reporters killed. US soldiers have opened fire on crowds of unarmed protestors killing scores of people. The only kind of resistance that has managed to survive is as crazed and brutal as the occupation itself. Is there space for a secular, democratic, feminist, non-violent resistance in Iraq? There isn't really.