Dockworkers at the Italian port of Genoa went on strike on May 20 to protest the Italian government’s decision to harbor a cargo ship carrying weapons to the Saudi government. The workers refused to load shipment onto the ship ‘Bahri Yanbu’ which was set to further arm the Saudi monarchy in their genocidal war on the people of Yemen. In solidarity with refugees fleeing the wreckage of imperialist wars, they demanded that the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini “open the ports to people and close them to arms.”
Earlier, on May 9, peace activists had prevented the loading of an arms shipment at the Le Havre port in France.
“We will not become complicit in the deaths of Yemeni civilians.”
In a joint statement with Potero al Popolo, a coalition of anti-fascist political organizations, the dock workers and transport workers from the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) in Genoa stated, “we believe this resistance is our small contribution to resolve a big problem for a population that is killed daily in wars…We will not become complicit in the deaths of Yemeni civilians.”
The U.S./Saudi war on Yemen, which started in March 2016, has caused at least 50,000 deaths and has pushed 13 million Yemenis to the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations. The relentless airstrikes by Saudi Arabia—with arms and support supplied by the U.S., Britain and France—have targeted and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure like hospitals and sewage treatment systems.
Worldwide, dockworkers have played a historic role in defending the international working class. Here in the U.S., the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has shown what it means for union workers to take seriously the slogan that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” As part of the international struggle against apartheid South Africa, for 10 days in 1984 they carried out a strike, refusing to unload cargo from a South African ship—an act of solidarity recognized by Nelson Mandela. In 2014, in support of the Palestinian fight against apartheid Israel, members of the ILWU Local 10 prevented the docking of an Israeli ship at the Port of Oakland.
The leadership of organized, class-conscious dock and transport workers shows the awesome potential of workers’ power: without us, the world stops. We can stop their wars.