Iraqi Oil Law Is “Robbery”

Six Nobel Peace Prize laureates have released a statement in opposition to the proposed controversial Iraqi oil law, that some observers believe could go before Parliament as early as this week.
The laureates include Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Wangari Maathai.
The statement reads, in part, “The Iraqi oil law could benefit foreign oil companies at the expense of the Iraqi people, deny the Iraqi people economic security, create greater instability and move the country further away from peace.”
Faleh Abood Umara, the general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and a founding member of the oil workers union in Iraq, also recently appeared on the Democracy Now radio programme in the US.
“We believe that this oil law does not serve the interests of the Iraqi people. So we ask our friends in the United States, as well, to stand in solidarity with us and publicize the ill effects of this law, so that it never is agreed upon in the parliament”, argues Umara.
He continues: “According to Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution, which states that the oil and gas of Iraq are owned by the Iraqi people and they have the right to control it.” But the “most important point of which is the issue of the production-sharing agreements, which allows the international oil companies, especially the American ones, to exploit the oil fields without our knowledge of what they are actually doing with it. And they take about 50% of the production as their share, which we think it’s an obvious robbery of the Iraqi oil”.
For more on this day-light robbery go here.