An Act of Banditry Unparalleled in the History of the United Nations

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An Act of Banditry Unparalleled in the History of the United Nations

Final Salary Pension Scheme Closures Double

Tens of Thousands of Teachers Demonstrate in France

The government of Iraq has denounced the US government for wresting control of the 12,000-page dossier on its past and present weapons and defence programme, which was submitted to the UN last Saturday. The Iraqi government referred to the actions of the US as "unprecedented blackmail", and "an act of banditry unparalleled in the history of the United Nations".

In a statement, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry that the actions of the US were proof of the Bush administration's wish to launch a military strike. "This American behaviour aims at manipulating United Nations documents to find covers for aggression against Iraq," it said.

According to news agency reports the US exerted pressure on Colombia, the country that currently holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, in order to lay claim to the dossier. This was despite a previous agreement with Iraq and a UN resolution stating that Iraq’s declaration would remain under the control of the UN. The US government then apparently copied the dossier and provided copies for the other four permanent members of the Security Council, China, Russia, France and Britain, but excluded other members of the Security Council, such as Syria and Norway, who are now reported to have lodged an official complaint.

The Colombian ambassador to the UN is reported to have claimed that the actions by the US were only taken after consultation with other Security Council members and based on the premise that only those countries that possess nuclear weapons are able to assess the potential risk that Iraq might pose. However, it is now alleged that other Security Council members will only receive edited versions of Iraq’s declaration. One diplomat is reported to have stated that the big powers wish to censor material in the dossier, which might contain embarrassing information relating to foreign monopolies that have supplied Iraq’s defence and chemical industries in the past. Syria’s ambassador to the UN expressed fears that the five big powers might claim that Iraq was in "material breach" of UN Resolution 1441 before non-permanent members of the Security Council had even seen the dossier.

Only 48 hours earlier, the Security Council had agreed that the report should remain in the hands of Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, until he had completed a first analysis and excised elements that might provide arms-making recipes. The understanding was that all 15 members would receive copies.

The US has passed uncut copies of the report to the CIA and other intelligence experts. White House officials admitted yesterday that they had been aggressive in their lobbying of the UN to ensure they received a copy of the report, rather than having to wait until the weapons inspectors had completed their examination.

It is also reported that a British diplomat accompanied the US officials who took an early copy of Iraq's declaration, although the diplomat did not go to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, took the unusual step of voicing his disquiet at how the US officials were allowed late on Sunday to acquire the declaration. "It was unfortunate and I hope it is not going to be repeated," he said.

Kofi Annan, speaking at a BBC World Service event, said there was nothing technically wrong with the early surrender of the report, but he said "the approach, and the style and the form was wrong because the Council had decided last Friday that nobody would get it". A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office confirmed that one British diplomat accompanied American officials to pick up the declaration late on Sunday. She insisted he was there "to witness the hand-over" because Britain is currently the leader of the Permanent Five.

The US, with Britain as its ally, is taking its exercise of arbitrary authority to new heights. When it demands "proof" that Iraq has no "weapons of mass destruction", Iraq complies with an impossible request. Then, the US impounds the document, and claims that only it has the "proof" that "weapons of mass destruction" exist. In other words, there is not a shred of respect for the rule of law, for the norms of international conduct, for the authority of the United Nations, nor even for concrete evidence of what exists and what does not exist in the real world. While this exercise of arbitrary authority is so blatant, the British government is fulfilling its role as the one which is on hand to provide justifications for what cannot be justified. Thus the British government is if anything even more culpable for its work in justifying the tearing up of agreements and the exercise of the dictate of the US superpower and trying to convince the world of their opposite.

The number of companies jumping on the cost cutting bandwagon, which have wound up final salary pension schemes, has almost doubled over the last twelve months. The effect on retired workers, and the future of all workers, is prospectively devastating and the only motive can be maximisation of profit. The attitude to employees, who have worked and contributed to such schemes for many decades, can only be described as an inhuman act.

According to the National Association of Pension Funds, there were also 84 final salary pension schemes that were closed to new members in 2002, an increase of 46 from last year. This is a sign of things to come with the eradication of all of these schemes in the offing.

The average contribution that employers are paid into alternative schemes was only 6% of a member's salary, half the 12% normally paid into a final salary pension scheme. A cut of this magnitude is nothing but a huge wage cut, which will affect the working class as a whole and has to be seriously opposed.

The alternative is for all workers to be secure in their livelihoods in the future, with a guaranteed income in old age. The income of retired workers should sustain a good standard of living for those who have been productive all of their lives and they should be cherished by the whole of civilised society. This is the only human way of regarding veteran workers, and governments are responsible to make sure that a secure national pension scheme is in place.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin faced a new wave of anger on Sunday as tens of thousands of marchers joined teachers in Paris demonstrating against school staffing cuts, weeks after a mass strike by state employees.

Teachers' unions said at least 40,000 people joined the march as students and parents, in protest against falling education standards, turned out in force. "This government has got no time for education at all. The anger, the concern is growing – this is just the start," said union leader Denis Plaget, speaking of government budget plans that could bring cuts of up to 15,000 classroom support posts. "They are cutting jobs in education, research and culture – they are like Raffarin's unwanted children," Plaget said of the six-month-old government's focus on defence and fighting crime.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin has in past weeks deployed riot police against road blockades by French truckers and farmers over other disputes. Rail workers and air traffic controllers also went on strike over privatisation plans. Utility workers caused power blackouts this week in a protest over planned reforms of their pension entitlements.

Schools across France already closed for a day in October, when up to a half the country's 300,000-plus teachers struck.