The Plough Vol 01 No 36

The Plough #36
25 April 2004

E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party

1) Editorial: ­The IMC
2) Some Interesting Facts
3) Belfast Councillor's Statements Irresponsible
4) Derry IRSP Statement
5) Reply to Eamonn McCann by Philip Ferguson (from The Blanket)
6) African National Congress
7) Letters
8) What's On?

*******

Editorial

So the International Monitoring Commission has published its first
report. The sole purpose of the report was to put pressure on the
Provisional Republican Movement. The IMC claims to be independent and
yet it responded to the British Government's request to especially
look into the "Bobby Tohill affair." It has not yet investigated the
steps towards demilitarisation promised by the Brits but not yet
delivered. The British Government has not yet authorised them to
report on this. So where is the independence?

The report is littered throughout with references to democracy and
the rule of law and it attempts to put pressure on all political
parties to endorse the new policing arrangements. It also calls on
all public bodies not to fund groups with alleged paramilitary links.
These are all clear political positions. The IMC is an instrument of
British Imperial policy. It is implementing British policy and all
the nice liberal editorials from the media have rushed to endorse the
report before examining its content.

That content is crap. A young man is charged with a killing in
Bangor. The IMC says this was loyalist killing. The PSNI say it was
not. The accused is not named in the IMC report. Four people are
charged with the kidnapping of Bobby Tohill. The PSNI allege that the
PIRA are involved. The four men are named despite the IMC themselves
talking about due process and not wishing interfere with the legal
process.

The references to the Republican Socialist Movement are a cut and
paste effort from the back pages of the Sunday World and have as much
relevance to the truth as the Sunday World journalists have to
integrity.

The IMC says its sources came from a wide range of people. They don't
require the same element of truth required in a court case and thus
have given carte blanche for every twisted individual to invent lies,
stories and gossip and have it treated as serious by the IMC.

The IMC are a bunch of pompous, hypocritical and self-serving
individuals only too eager to do the bidding of Her Majesty's
Government.

*******

Some Interesting Facts

The rich are getting richer. "Northern Ireland's rich never had it so
good. The top ten richest people in the province have a combined
wealth totalling £2.235m, compared with £1.520 in 2003 -- an
increase of 47%" (Sunday Times 18 April 2004). The richest people in
the six counties are not the only one to be doing well financially:

"Britain's richest 1000 increased their wealth by 29.8 percent to
£202.4 billion last year. This amounts to a doubling of wealth in
four years" (Ibid). One can wonder whether the ordinary workers'
wages have increased by 47 percent in one year, or if the Job
Seeker's Allowance has doubled in four years... Interestingly,
speaking of philanthropy, "The richest 20% in Britain give 0.7% of
their household expenditure to charity, while last year the poorest
20% gave as much as 3%" (Ibid).

One rarely hears our politicians talking about the economic
contribution of criminal activities to the GNP.

"The generous contribution of prostitution, drugs and smuggling to
the Irish economy will, for the first time, be measured for inclusion
in the country's national wealth statistics. The illegal activities
will add up to a massive 1.32 billion Euro annually, following
international recording patterns."

According to Brian Newson, the head of Eurostat's national accounting
unit, "Generating income -- for example, by producing and
distributing drugs -- looks like an economic activity like any other.
But it happens to be illegal. The practical problem arises in
measuring these illegal activities." (The Sunday Business Post, 4
April 2004)

After all, business is business. If these activities were legal, they
probably would be eligible for tax exemption.

"The outrageous fortunes of those who jumped to the private sector" --
such was a recent headline in the Sunday Tribune (11 April 2004).
This article pointed to the very close links that exist between
senior civil servants, political advisers and capitalists, and how
their private work and consultancy projects can conflict with public
interest.

"Quinlan was a senior tax official in Revenue over ten years ago,
when he spotted the potential in finance minister Charlie McCreevy's
budget decision to give generous tax breaks to investors...Quinlan
promptly left revenue, and armed with the experience gleaned, he set
up his own company, Quinlan Private, which offered wealthy
individuals high-yield investment opportunities which maximised Mc
McCreevy's tax breaks...Though Quinlan might be the most quietly
successful of the former mandarins who left to try their luck in the
market, there are others."

For example, "Michael Buckley was a high ranking official in the
Department of Finance when he upped and joined Allied Irish Bank,
eventually taking over as Chief Executive of the bank. Buckley now
has shares in the bank valued at over 3 million Euro and annual
salary of 1.4 million Euros. Along the way, he also headed up the
body which sets salaries for top level public servants such as the
Taoiseach, ministers and judges -- an irony which is not lost on his
former colleagues in Finance, who hold the purse strings." One
wonders what would be the public reaction if some politician set up
an office advising unemployed people how to get the maximum amount of
benefits from the state! "Current mandarins who aspire to the
corporate life will have to get permission...before they can make a
move into the more lucrative private sector." However,
unsurprisingly: "But they may not have that much to worry about as
the draft code has been on the table for the last four years and has
yet to be formally adopted."

*******

Belfast Councillor's Statements Irresponsible Say IRSP

The IRSP in North Belfast have hit out at a Belfast councillor as
grossly irresponsible for alleging that the INLA and UDA were
responsible for recent sectarian attacks in the Ligoniel area.

Councillor Eoin O'Broin stated in last week's North Belfast News that
an incident at the "turn of the road" was the responsibility of the
INLA. The IRSP met with Councillor O'Broin last week following his
outlandish claims.

IRSP representative Paul Little said: "The IRSP have long said that
sectarian attacks in North Belfast have to stop immediately and we
fully support community initiatives that aim to bring these attacks
to an end.

"Councillor O'Broin is well aware that loyalist attacks are not
reactive and driven by pure sectarian hatred; his attack on
Republican Socialists is opportunistic, inaccurate and lends credence
to loyalist claims that sectarian attacks by loyalists are merely a
response to nationalist attacks.

"We reiterate the IRSP's total rejection of sectarian attacks on
North Belfast's interfaces and further we call on protestant working
class communities to support the various community initiatives aimed
at eradicating this blight on all our futures.

"In the meantime communities need to remain patient and to confront
those involved in sectarian attacks within their own communities.
However, any resident has the right to defend themselves from
sectarian attack on their person or their property. The IRSP defend
that right."

*******

The following statement was issued by the IRSP in Derry following an
article in the Derry Journal on Sunday, 18 April 2004.

Following the spurious and sensationalist reporting of a recent
punishment attack in Galliagh the IRSP have been in touch with the
Derry Brigade of the INLA to fully ascertain the true facts as to
their involvement or otherwise in this alleged attack.

The INLA have assured the IRSP that they had no units on active duty
in the Galliagh area on Friday 16th April. They have also pointed out
to us that the INLA in Derry have never used nail-studded implements
in any such incident.

The IRSP are extremely concerned at this latest attempt to demonise
the IRSM without one shred of evidence. We would urge all those
reporting on such matters to get in touch with the IRSP in Derry to
ascertain the facts before going to press with outright lies.

The IRSP take this opportunity to call for an inclusive community
response to the problems that affect the lives of people in these
estates. Joyriding, burglaries and vandalism are making people live
like prisoners in their own homes. The IRSM will not be falling into
the trap of demonising all the young people in these estates. We know
there are many good young people who have nothing else to do in the
evenings but hang around street corners. But there is a tiny minority
of these people who are intent on pushing the community to the limit
of their patience and patience is wearing thin. We call on these
young people make peace with their community. Parents, youth workers,
concerned community activists and local politicians in these
marginalised estates must come together and make a concerted attempt
at solving these problems and to promote active citizenship amongst
these disaffected young people.

*******

Reply to Eamonn McCann by Philip Ferguson (from The Blanket)

Eamonn McCann's essential argument is that "To attack the current
Sinn Fein leadership for reneging on principles is to miss the main
point: they are not deviating from but are following closely along
the path trodden by every previous Sinn Fein leadership because of
their nationalist ideology." McCann suggests the logic of
republicanism has always been to sell out. This is wrong on a number
of accounts.

Firstly, it lets the SF leadership off the hook. In fact, the
republican goal has always been an independent Ireland with
fundamental socio-economic change in the interests of the people of
no property. Even in periods when this was poorly articulated, this
was still the underlying aim.

In recent years that has been abandoned in exchange for the chance of
assisting the British imperialists in running the six counties. And
this would logically be complemented by a future coalition
arrangement with Fianna Fail in helping administer neo-colonial
capitalism in the other twenty-six counties.

People who see no good reason why the sacrifices of the past several
decades should be thrown away like this have every good reason to
view this as a betrayal.

Secondly, there is an inspiring tradition of republicans who did not
sell out, beginning with Wolfe Tone and continuing through Robert
Emmet, Fintan Lalor, the Fenians and IRB section led by Tom Clarke
and Padraig Pearse.

Thirdly, since McCann declares himself to be a socialist, there is
the fact that the founder and greatest figure of Irish Marxism, James
Connolly, was a republican. He was a republican because he was a
Marxist and understood that you cannot be a Marxist in Ireland
without being a republican. Connolly understood the difference
between the nationalism of the imperialist oppressor and that of the
national liberation struggle.

Connolly understood that rejection of republicanism per se by
some "socialists" had no progressive or redeeming elements. It simply
meant capitulation to imperialism and, thus, to the existing state of
affairs in Ireland.

The fact that McCann's own organisation managed to sit out the
struggle in the north, not able to summon up so much as the energy to
throw a stone against thousands of occupation troops, indicates the
sorry state of his "socialist" alternative to the Provos. One can't
help but be amused by the idea of an Irish SWP-type group in Iraq
today. Presumably they would be counselling the Iraqis against
anything so outrageous as armed actions against the occupying forces,
although I assume Iraq is safely far enough away that they can
support the slogan of self-determination there which they find so
hard to identify with in Ireland itself.

Indeed, in the local body elections the SWP-CP front, the Socialist
Environmental Alliance, managed in its tame manifesto to evade
mention of the thousands of imperialist troops in the six counties.
Their highest horizon in relation to the local sectarian police
force, meanwhile, was to suggest that if any SEA candidates got
elected they would monitor its activities. Very revolutionary indeed.
I'm sure the British ruling class and their fellow bourgeois in the
six counties are losing sleep over the daunting revolutionary aims of
the SEA!

McCann, of course, also does not mention the political trajectory of
all those "socialists" who have evaded the national question or
failed to take a lead in the struggle for national liberation.
What happened to those whom Connolly labelled "gas and water
socialists" for failing to take up the national question in the early
1900s? What happened to the Irish Labour Party after Connolly, as it
forsook the national question? What happened to the Officials when
they abandoned the national question?

History would tend to suggest that there is a logic, a clear
opportunist and rightist logic, to the politics of those "socialists"
who take fright at the revolutionary -- and therefore difficult --
implications of the national question and prefer their "socialism" to
be less arduous and more of the gas and water variety. They all moved
right and accommodated themselves to the existing state of affairs.
McCann's group, with their desire to merely monitor the RUC,
while "fighting" within the confines of social democratic trade
unionism for a bit of butter on the workers' bread, are hardly an
inspiring alternative to the political bourgeoisification of the
Provisionals. They merely represent the other side of the same
coin.

If there is to be any serious challenge to the status quo in Ireland
it has to retrieve Connolly and develop a Connolly-type perspective
for today. That means uniting the national and class questions and
building an all-Ireland revolutionary movement against imperialist
domination and its local allies and underlings, partition,
sectarianism and the exploitation of the working class and small
farmers.

*******

African National Congress

The African National Congress has coasted to an easy victory in the
South African elections. More significant than its two-thirds of the
vote, however, was the greatly reduced voter turnout. From more than
90 per cent in the first post-apartheid election in 1994, voter
turnout dropped to about 70 per cent in 1999 and is predicted to be
just over 50 per cent this time. This reflects soaring mistrust in
the ANC among black voters in South Africa's poorest communities. The
ANC victory, for those who voted, merely reflects the lack of a
credible national alternative. Voter mistrust has a simple
explanation. Most black South Africans have suffered a reduction in
their standard of living after 10 years of ANC rule, and there are
ominous signs that South Africa will implode in the coming years if
ANC economic policy continues to favour the wealthy at the expense of
the poor. Following its election to power, the ANC developed an
economic strategy known as Gear (Growth, Employment and
Redistribution). This promised 6 per cent annual growth by the year
2000, and 400,000 new jobs every year. It has not delivered. The
official jobless rate grew from 16 per cent in 1995 to 30 per cent
last year. However, when discouraged job seekers are added in, the
actual unemployment rate now stands at 42 per cent nationwide and
more than 80 per cent in some rural areas. The process was
accelerated from 1996 when the ANC adopted a World Bank plan for
South Africa's economy, which, among other things, involved
commercialising and privatising government services. About 20,000
people lost their jobs when South Africa's Telekom was sold, and
another 30,000 became redundant in a privatised electricity sector.
Many millions of blacks have now lost access to essential services,
such as running water, electricity and telephones, because they
cannot afford to pay the charges set by the private corporations.
Predictably, poverty has deepened, with the economic gaps between
blacks and whites widening.

According to the Chronic Poverty Research Centre at the University of
the Western Cape, the average income of black households dropped by
19 per cent from 1995 to 2000, while over the same period the average
white household income grew 15 per cent. Absolute poverty levels
increased from 20 per cent in 1995 to 28 per cent in 2000. It is not
the hopes of South Africa's impoverished black majority, which have
been fulfilled by democracy, but those of South Africa's
corporations, global investors and the white minority. While the
incomes of the black majority have been reduced, the corporate sector
has been on the gravy train. Corporate tax rates were cut from 48 per
cent in 1994 to 30 per cent by 1999. Many activists dubbed the ANC
policy "reverse Gear" as its effects bit, and wealth was transferred
from the poorest sections of South African society to the richest.
These issues are familiar to New Zealand. Our economy was hijacked by
the Labour Government of 1984 and delivered to the private sector;
the ANC has done the same thing in South Africa with precisely
parallel effects. Organisations are now beginning to emerge in the
black communities across South Africa to challenge the ANC. Typically
they are organising around community service issues, such as housing,
water and electricity, and are met with the same brutal violence as
the white minority once dished out to black activists. In February,
in scenes reminiscent of the darkest days of apartheid South Africa,
two black school students, 17-year-old Dennis Mathibithi and 15-year-
old Nhlanhla Masuku, were shot and killed by police as they joined a
protest to prevent poor families being evicted from their homes in
the township of Kathlehong. In the run-up to the election, ANC
activists disrupted meetings organised by community groups such as
the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Gauteng Landless Peoples
Movement. There are ominous signs that South Africa will implode in
the coming years because there is no indication that ANC policies
will do more than change the cThe Plough-36.ems olour of the skin of
those who conduct the repression. In essence, South Africa has
shifted from racial apartheid to economic apartheid.

Reprinted from [John Minto: ANC victory highlights the lack of a
credible choice 20.04.2004 - COMMENT NZ Herald]

*******

Letters

Dear comrade,

As a sympathiser of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement I agree
with the political line of the movement and I am happy that Ireland
has a non-revisionist left with the IRSP. But now I have a criticism,
which I want to express. When I visited the merchandise homepage of
the IRSP yesterday I was surprised that they/you sell a t-shirt with
the slogan "Stop Bush" in which the "s" of Bush is replaced through a
swastika (http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.10591398).

I will try to explain why I totally disagree with the analogy of us-
imperialism and nazi-fascism and why I think that this is a risky
politic. I have to say that I am from Germany and because of that I
maybe have another kind of view on German history. It would be nice
to get some answers, especially from some persons of the IRSP.

The comparing of the politic of the USA (especially since Bush is
president) and the German Nazis is very popular. These happen in a
lot of ways: like at this t-shirt or with pictures on which Bush
stands next to Hitler in a similar posture and so on. All these
analogies advising that the imperialist politics of the USA and the
Nazis look alike. But there are a lot of varieties and the holocaust
is only one of them. But which are the varieties? Firstly I have to
explain what my definitions of Fascism and the German fascism are.

Like a lot of other German leftist I am geared to the fascism-theory
of Reinhard Kühnl. Kühnl is professor for politics at the
university of Marburg, a Marxist and important position in the
dispute of German historians about fascism, which were discussed
maybe 20 years ago. In his opinion fascism is a kind of capitalist
governance, which is used, when the capitalist order is in danger.
When a socialist revolution is imminent, the fascist movement, the
power elite of economy, military and bureaucracy creates an alliance.
The smallest consensus of this alliance is anti-Marxism and the
struggle against the social democratic workers movement. The social
structure of each fascist system is to get the voice of the dependent
working people in silence -- from Italy 1922 to Chile 1973. The
ideology of fascism combined six main motives. In differences
to "normal" dictatorships only the cooperation of this six motives
addict fascism. The motives are:

1. A "companionship ideology" in which nationalism is an important
part.

2. An ideology of authority which meets in the principle of leader.

3. An ownership ideology which meets in militant anti-communism.

4. An appearance of anti-capitalism against high finance.

5. A philosophy of scapegoats which gives an explanation for the
evils of the world and delivers an object on which the masses can
vent ones' anger without danger.

6. Militarism.

The social functions of fascism are:

1. The maintenance of the capitalist social order in crisis.

2. The abolishment of revolutionary and reformist movements.

3. Safeguarding of social privileges of the upper class and extension
of profits of the capital.

4. Extension of the economic power of the state which meets in an
upgrading of political power.

5. Creation of the political and military conditions for an
imperialist politic.

The particularity of the German or Nazi fascism runs in the
industrial extermination of Jews (called Holocaust or Shoah). For
this the Nazis built special extermination camp. 6 million Jews,
which were arrested from the occupied countries all over Europe, were
murdered. Just in the concentration- and extermination camp Majdanek
the Nazis murdered 200.000 people. At the conference of Wannsee in
1942 the Nazis decides the extermination of European Judaism.

Additional to the holocaust the Nazis murdered over 20 million of so
called "subhuman beings" in the Soviet Union to create "living space"
for the Germans. The Second World War, which was started when the
Nazi-Wehrmacht occupied Poland in 1939, the holocaust and the brute
force against the opposition (especially communists) killed 60
million people. The reasons of the extermination of the Jews are not
completely explored until today. But there are a lot of motivations,
which are known:

1. Irrational anti-Semitism which has a long tradition in Europe,
especially in Germany.

2. "Extermination through work": millions of prisoners of
concentration camps, displaced persons and prisoners of war had to do
compulsory labor for the German industry. The industry paid money for
this to the Nazis. These workers had to work under worst conditions
until they died. They offered the cheapest manpower.

3. The "experience" of the first world war with ended in an abortive
revolution at the front at home in 1918. One of the reasons for the
1918 revolution was the hunger in Germany. As a doctrine of this the
Nazis calculated that they had to reduce the population to avert
hunger in the backcountry for their planed war.

All these facts leads me to the awareness that the politics and the
system of the USA are neither a fascist system nor comparable with
the German kind of fascism. In antagonism to a fascist system unions
are allowed, there are "free" elections; communist groups are not
forbidden...

As leftist we have good arguments and analyses, we don't need to
shorten our denegation of imperialism as a logical evolution of
capitalism. But the analogy of us-imperialism and nazi-fascism is not
only stupid; it's dangerous and reactionary, too. Taking the
particularity of German fascism is grist for the mill of the German
fascist movement and German imperialism.

In association with campaigns against the exhibition "Crimes of the
Wehrmacht" which shows, that the Wehrmacht were a necessary part of
the Holocaust, the nazi movement try to propagate that the Wehrmacht
was a "normal" army. But it wasn't. The Wehrmacht was part of the
holocaust. As long as the front stood, the Nazis were able to keep
their system of extermination. Also in the occupied countries the
Wehrmacht massacred civilians and freedom fighters.

Taking the particularity of German fascism is also in the interest of
German imperialism. Like other imperialist countries, Germany want to
achieve economic interests using the instrument of armed
interventions and war. Since the nazi-fascism was destroyed in 1945
the German imperialism fought against the stigma of nazi-
fascism. When the federal republic of Germany was founded in 1949
the consensus in the German population called: Never again war from
German floor. The formation of the new (western) German army, the
Bundeswehr, was only able with reference to the necessity of a NATO-
membership. In official terms the Bundeswehr was a defending
army. The use of these forces was in these times not enforceable
because of the existence of the GDR and the Soviet Union. Since the
collapse of the real existing socialism things have changed.

1. With the so-called German Unification Germany became a "normal"
western state and demanded a sovereign foreign policy.

2. After the ending of cold war the USA declared that they don't want
to pay the costs for the interests of other western countries in
future.

The next important step for the German imperialism followed with the
war in Yugoslavia. This war was the first war in which a German army
fought since the end of the Second World War. The arguments of the
German governance changed. In the past a cooperation of the German
army at war was not possible because of the German holocaust. But the
Yugoslavia war was justified because of the holocaust. The German
governance found parallels between the German Nazis and the Serbs.
They presented "arguments" for concentration camps and the so-
called "Hufeisen"-plan for ethnical displacements.

"Arguments" like the "Hufeisen"-plan emerged very fast as fakes,
which came directly from the defence minister and in the co-
called "concentration camps" no one were gassed. At a press
conference about Yugoslavia the foreign minister and former militant
left Joschka Fischer defended the war with the words "Auschwitz -
never again". The negative answer of the US-American demand for
German help at the Iraq war is no pacifism. It is the new self-
conception of a new redefined Germany.

Together with France Germany was one of the best business-partner of
the Iraq of Saddamm Hussein. No need for a system-change in Iraq.
Every minimisation of the nazi-fascism is a beat in the face of the
victims and stupid, unhistorical, non-scientific partisanship for
German warmonger. Imperialism sucks without having analogy to the
Nazis.

*

THE ASSAULT AGAINST THE CUT TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN COLOMBIA HAS NOT
STOPPED!!!

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOW ONLY INTERESTED IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RE-ELECTION
OF URIBE

There is a special conjuncture in Colombia right now: the Congress of
the Republic manipulated and revived the proposed regulations for the
Anti-terrorist Statute, that had been archived; allegations abound of
infiltration by narco-trafficking and the paramilitaries in the
National Attorney General's office, and the National Police; yet
the Government's only concern is to get a law through Congress that
will guarantee the re-election of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez
en route for an even more reactionary struggle.

In the midst of this panorama trade unionists continue to be
assassinated, threatened and kidnapped -- all with complete impunity
for the perpetrators.

28 March in the city of Chiquinquirá, Boyacá department the
teacher ALEXANDER PARRA a member of the School Teachers Union
SINDIMAESTROS–FECODE was assassinated.

1 April in Medellín, 35-year-old teacher JUAN JAVIER GIRALDO was
assassinated. This took place as he was travelling from his workplace
to his home. He was a member of the teachers union Asociación de
Institutores de Antioquia ADIDA–FECODE.

12 April JOSÉ GARCÍA, a teacher at the Rural School Santa Elena
Vereda in Tame, Arauca departament and a member of Aruaca Teachers
Association ASEDAR–FECODE was assassinated.

14 April JORGE MARIO GIRALDO CARDONA, a teacher working at the
José Felix de Bedouth College in Medellín, and a member of the
Asociación de Institutores de Antioquia ADIDA–FECODE was
assassinated.

14 April in Yumbo – Valle del Cauca there was an attempt on the
life of comrade EDGAR PEREA Vice-president of the Metalworkers Union
SINTRAMETAL in which his brother RAÚL PEREA was killed.

27 days ago trade union leader LUIS CARLOS HERRERA MONSALVE Vice-
president of the Departamental Employees Association of Antioquia was
kidnapped. We demand that his captors, presumed to be the FARC,
return him safe and sound to his family and his union as soon as
possible.

Threats and harassment against leaders of the food industry union
SINALTRAINAL are continuing, who have staged a hunger strike against
sackings by the multinational COCA COLA y and the corporation BURNS
PHIL COLOMBIA.

Finally, as Director of the Human Rights Department of the CUT –
Colombia, my family and I continue to be victims of constant death
threats and a supposed plan to assassinate me. The security
authorities have themselves expressed concern for my security and
that of my family. I have the firmness and the conviction to continue
in the work as a trade unionist defender of human rights from the CUT
or from wherever necessary.

We call on the international community to continue with the universal
principle of solidarity with the men and women workers of Colombia.
We will not desist in our struggle.

TO THIS DATE 17 TRADE UNIONISTS HAVE BEEN ASSASSINATED AND NOTHING
HAS BEEN DONE...

DOMINGO TOVAR ARRIETA
Director Human Rights Departament
Bogotá, D. C. 15 April 2004

Tel: PBX y FAX (00571) 3237550-3237950
Email: cut@cut.org.co -- derechoshumanos@cut.org.co

*******

What's On?

*

ANTI-WAR IRELAND bulletin, 15/4/04

Anti-War Ireland is a broad-based, and inclusive, national alliance
of independent anti-war groups. It is explicitly anti-racist and anti-
sexist.

Convenor: Fintan Lane (087 1258325)
PROs: Caoimhe Butterly (087 2134160), and Tim Hourigan (087 9777703).

Anti-War Ireland organising meeting. Meeting to discuss the
forthcoming AWI national conference. This meeting will be held in
Limerick on Saturday, 24 April - for information phone Fintan Lane at
087 1258325.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past week or so, the violence and brutality of the US
occupation of Iraq has been fully exposed. The US military onslaught
on Falluja has resulted in the deaths of more than 600 people, the
majority of whom were almost certainly civilians. This collective
punishment was supposedly in retaliation for the killing and
mutilation of four private security contractors in the city, but it
is clear that the real point was to use overwhelming force to
indicate who is boss in the 'new' Iraq. In the process hundreds of
innocent men, women and children have been killed. This is an outrage.

Elsewhere, the US faces an armed uprising of Shia Muslims who have
clearly had enough of the continuing occupation of their country.
This rising has finally and savagely exposed the lie circulated by
the Bremer regime that the resistance in Iraq was composed entirely
of "former regime loyalists" and "foreign fighters". It is now clear
that the opposition to the occupation is growing among ordinary
Iraqis, both Sunni and Shia.

In Ireland, Bertie Ahern and his government continue to facilitate
the US killing machine at Shannon airport. Indeed, the extent of
Irish complicity was underlined recently when the Evening Herald
published photographs of US military aircraft landing at Baldonnel to
avail of refuelling facilities there. Ireland remains a cog in the US
war machine.

Anti-War Ireland believes that a key aim of the anti-war movement in
this country must be the ending of Irish government complicity. We
must disengage this State from the US war machine, and we must make
clear the extent of Irish opposition to the belligerence of the Bush
administration.

Anti-War Ireland is organising a national conference for 15 May to re-
organise and re-mobilise the anti-war movement in Ireland. Details
will be posted closer to the date.

Anti-War Ireland is also building for a large protest to be held at
Shannon airport on Friday evening, 25 June, to 'welcome' the
warmonger George W. Bush as he arrives in Ireland. We intend to meet
and greet as he arrives, to voice our objections to his
administration's actions in Iraq and elsewhere (such as his recent
support for Israeli land-grabbing in Palestine), and simultaneously
protest at the misuse of an Irish civilian airport for US military
purposes. We are hoping and expecting buses to travel from all over
Ireland, and beyond, for this demonstration.

(If you wish to include an event/notice in future bulletins, please
email the relevant information to irishanti-war@excite.com.)

email: irishanti-war@excite.com
phone: 087 1258325

*

Remember Palestine at Belfast May Day March Saturday 1st May: 12.00pm
Annual May Day March in Belfast City Centre The IPSC will be
represented as usual in this year's march the theme of which is March
against racism! Come along and show your support for the cause of
Palestine. Bring flags and posters. Join 6000 trade unionists and
working people in the annual May Day March through Belfast city
centre accompanied by brass, pipe and samba bands Assemble College of
Art, Lower Donegall Street, Belfast, 12pm for speeches before the
march through the City centre past the City hall and into St George's
Market at the back of the City Hall. Afterwards take part in the
Family festival in St. George's Market 1pm-5pm, where there will be
food stalls and family entertainment.

*

The 5th William Thompson Weekend takes place at the Firkin Crane
Centre in Cork over the May bank holiday weekend.

The theme this year is 'Class' and a full programme will be posted
closer to the date.

*******

Please feel free to comment on the contents of the Plough. We welcome
political comments and criticisms.

If you know of anybody who might wish to receive the Plough please
send his or her e-mail address to johnmartinps@eircom.net.

If you wish to receive back copies of the "The Plough" please e-mail
to johnmartinps@eircom.net stating which numbers you wish.

To unsubscribe to the Plough please send e-mail
entitled "unsubscribe" to johnmartinps@eircom.net.

It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and
articles from other sources.

Subscribe to the bi-monthly
"The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta"
P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.
THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!
Email: starry_plough@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.irsm.org/irsp/starryplough/

Fighting Fund/Donations
To: The Starry Plough
First Trust Bank, Derry, BT48 6BU
Account No. 14986015 Sort Code No. 93-86-10

http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html (Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na
h-Éireann)
http://www.wageslave.org/jcs/ (James Connolly Society)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/ (James Connolly Archive)

The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP
http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/

Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/

Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526

*

Support the IRSP

Standing Order Form

To the Manager First Trust Bank, Andersonstown.

Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
93-84-75

The sum of:
Amount in words:

Commencing date: and thereafter every month till further notice.

And debiting A/C number:

Name (Please print clearly):
Date:

Address:


Signature:

The Plough Vol 01 No 35

The Plough #35
18 April 2004

E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party

1) Editorial
2) FROM THE ARCHIVES: "IN THE 70s - THE IRA SPEAKS"
3) Free the Jailed Activists of the DHKP-C and Anti-Imperialist Camp
4) Letters
5) What's On?

*******

Editorial

This coming week sees the publication of the International Monitoring
body's report into alleged breaches of ceasefires. When the peace
process began the IRSP said that no republican should trust the
British. We have been proved right over the years. Provisional Sinn
Fein have learnt to their cost that putting their trust in the words
of British Ministers is a road to disaster. One of the members of the
IMC is a former second in command of the CIA. He has the audacity to
sit in judgement on violence in Ireland when he has justified
imperialist violence world wide. The Republican Socialist Movement
has had no contact with the International Monitoring Commission.
Regardless of its report that will continue to be our position.

By way of contrast with the current state of Republican Politics we
thought it timely to re-print from the archives "IN THE 70s - THE IRA
SPEAKS." This is the position of the Official IRA as opposed to the
Provisional IRA. When the leadership of the OIRA began to move away
from the positions within this document republican socialists broke
away and formed the Republican Socialist Movement.

*******

FROM THE ARCHIVES

"IN THE 70s - THE IRA SPEAKS"

(Official Sinn Fein, Dublin: Repsol Pamphlet Number 3, 1972)

INTRODUCTION

"The I.R.A. in the 70s" was first published in January 1970 in answer
to a request by the United Irishman to the Irish Republican Publicity
Bureau. The statement was issued over the name of J.J McGarritty,
Secretary of the Bureau. It is one of the most comprehensive
statements released over the past decade on the aims, objectives and
methods of the Irish Republican Army.

The statement spans two decades, ranging over the history of the
I.R.A. for the past ten years, since 1962 in particular, and giving
indications of what the policies of the I.R.A. will be in the ten
years just beginning. The Republican Movement as a whole against
British Imperialism discusses the history and future of the I.R.A.,
within the context of the struggle, both North and South.

The struggle is described under three main headings: Economic,
Political and Military resistance to Imperialism. The relationship
between the three aspects of the struggle is also explained. Military
action undertaken in recent years - such as in the E.I. dispute at
Shannon, the action taken to defend fishery resources off Co. Galway
in 1968, attacks on foreign-owned ranches in Meath, and such recent
actions as that undertaken on behalf of striking workers in Mogul
Mines, Silvermines, Co. Tipperary - is put into perspective against
the political background which made them necessary. The statement
should go a long way towards helping the public judge the I.R.A. for
what it is. To many people, the I.R.A. in general suggests gun-toting
youths, fanaticism and misguided old men living in the past. They
rarely get an opportunity of putting their ideas across to the
public, now, the Educational Department of the Republican Movement is
publishing "The I.R.A. in the 70s" as No. 3 of a series of pamphlets
being published on behalf of the Revolutionary Movement in an attempt
to inform the Irish people of what the role of the Irish Republican
Army is, as seen by the Army Council of the I.R.A.

1) THE I.R.A. IN THE 70s

In February '62 the IRA ended its most recent Campaign of Resistance
to British military occupation of Ireland. From the military point of
view the campaign was well conceived, well organised and capably
executed. There was a high level of training, discipline and morale
among the volunteers, and their equipment was reasonably good. Never
the less they did not succeed in their objective. Why?

As soon as the campaign ended the questioning, examination and
assessment began. It was not confined to the 1956 Campaign but
covered the role of the Republican Movement since 1916. One thing was
evident. The Irish Republican army had come remote from the people.
The people respected the stand, which they were taking, and indeed
they cheered them on from the sidelines. But they were spectators and
not participants in the Republican struggle against British
Imperialism.

It's agreed that the major miscalculations of the past were political
rather than military. War is an extension of politics end must be
logically seen by the people as such. The following major weaknesses
were seen by the Army Council:

1. The Army had no solid political base amongst the people.
2. It had no clear-cut ideology, which could define to the people
what the struggle was all about.
3. The Army had concentrated its attacks on the British Military
Occupation of the 6 Counties to the exclusion of direct assaults on:
a) The British Political Administration in the 6 Counties~ b ) The
British Economic and Cultural penetration of both the 6 and 26
Counties.
4. Free Statism had been left free of military, political and
economic assaults and was merely attacked for its failure to take the
6 Counties and for its coercion of Republicans.

Free Statism is now a clearly defined pseudo-Nationalist I Catholic I
Capitalist philosophy rooted in Griffith and De Valera and happy in
its British designed geographical area.

FUTURE STRATEGY:

By 1963 the strategy of the future had taken shape. It was decided,
not to organize for a campaign in the six counties against the
British Occupation Forces, but to organize for a revolution in the
whole country against all the forces of British Imperialism and
native Gombeenism. Our objective was to be the Re-Conquest of
Ireland, not simply to place an Irish Government in political control
of the geographical entity of Ireland but to place the mass of the
people in actual control of the wealth and resources of the Irish
Nation and to give them a cultural identity.

Our methods were to be:

Economic and Cultural resistance by the people, to British
imperialist penetration, exploitation and to the enslavement by the
gombeen men. Political Action by the people to defend their rights,
to achieve specific objectives or simply to demonstrate their
strength and power. Military Action to back up the peoples' demands,
to defend the peoples gains and eventually to carry through a
successful national liberation struggle. No time was lost in
preparing policy documents, drawing up education programmes and
generally adapting the whole Republican Movement for the new type of
campaign ahead. Even while this was being done the activists within
the Army were already enthusiastically engaged in the first phase of
organising economic resistance.

ECONOMIC RESISTANCE

The activities resulting from this strategic decision slowly but
surely showed results. The deep freeze, which seemed to grip so many
areas of political life began to thaw in particular the more vital
areas close to the living and working conditions of people. The
example and assistance given in the foundation of Tenants'
Associations gave working class people a powerful organisation in a
sphere, which was completely at the mercy of TDs and Councillors. The
patronage system was now being gradually broken down. Citizen Advice
Bureaux sprung up in many areas and they soon became the powerhouse
of most agitationary activity. The most exploited and oppressed found
their way to the Sinn Fein Citizen Advice Bureaux and from them
Housing Action groups were set up in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Derry,
Belfast, Dun Laoghaire and Bray.

The Republican Trade Union Group was formed to educate Republicans in
the need for Trade Union involvement aimed at making Trade unionists
more conscious and militant. Assistance was given to unofficial
strikers who had a just cause but a weak and compromising Trade Union
leadership. Bord na Mona strikers, I.I.A., Arigna coal workers
enslaved by Leydens and various smaller groups were given assistance
and encouragement. E.I. provides an example of successful militant
action backing up the 1913 established principle of a right to form a
Trade Union then under attack by the American company at Shannon.

Credit Unions have grown throughout the country with the co-operation
and help of Republicans who see in the Credit Union Movement a means
of teaching people something of the mystery of high finance and
making them independent of banks and H.P. Companies. They also see
Credit Unions as the beginning of the Co-operative Banking system,
which could smash the power of the Commercial Banks.

LAND LEAGUE

In rural areas support for the Cooperative Movement allied to
political action for Government aid was seen as one solution to the
problem of the small farmer. As the decade progressed and the
Government made friendly noises without giving any real assistance,
the attitudes of the hard-pressed farmers hardened.

Land Leagues that have latterly sprung up with the active
encouragement of the Republican Movement have solved the problem of
providing an organisation at the level of Ireland's small farmers and
should ultimately give them a voice independent of the big-farmer
dominated N.F.A. Government apathy to the plight of the small farmer
became official policy with the publication of the Third Programme
condemning 36,000 to leave the land by 1972.

Land buying by foreigners had become rampant. Land prices soared.
Small uneconomic farm-holders despaired. Militant action was again
called for. A short sharp campaign against foreign owned farms
brought land prices back to normal and effected more permanent relief
on this score than a decade of Government legislation.

More recent successes for the policy of Economic Resistance includes
that of the "National Waters Restoration League" in its demand for
repossession and public ownership of inland waters: a single season
of 'fish-ins' forced a reluctant Government to establish a Commission
to inquire into the matter. A paralleled agitation will be that to
have Ground Rent abolished in urban areas. Both of these agitations
involve the aftereffects of Conquest and both involve the principle,
which carried the Land League to victory in the 1890s. Neither can be
won without a well-organised struggle against the forces of vested
interest, which the political structure of the Dail and legislature
supports.

But apart altogether from individual successes in the course of these
campaigns the greatest success has been the change in attitude of
people. In the past dissatisfaction and complaints about injustice
was channeled through local TDs and Councillors who succeeded in
averting trouble with promises of action. There was a feeling of
hopelessness and apathy and a lack of the will to resist.

Now injustice is a challenge and dissatisfaction is a call to action.
The people have seen their own power and are no longer going to be
pushed around. The once powerful local politician is now beng defied
even by those whose jobs he holds in the palm of his hand.
The first lesson had been learned - ORGANISE and RESIST.

POLITICAL ACTION

Campaigns were carried out with varied degrees of success on a number
of political issues, in most of which Republicans were associated
with other groups who agreed with the objective. The most notable of
these were:

Opposition to the E.E.C.
The Defence of the Nation League.
Opposition to the Free Trade Agreement.
Campaign against the Criminal Justice Bill.
Support for Citizens for Civil Liberties.
Civil Rights Campaign in the North.
Our support for N.I.C.R.A.
The fight for the rights of the people of the Gaeltacht.
Our support for the Coisde Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta.

Arising out of these struggles many felt the need to take the
political fight a stage further and felt frustrated as they saw
political opportunists climbing on their backs. As 1969 closed, this
problem was tackled in order to make the fullest use of whatever
opportunities arose. A democratically elected Army Convention decided
by a large majority to remove all restrictions on the leadership in
regard to electoral policy so that they could use the tactics best
suited to the occasion to smash the power of the establishment, North
and South.

Whether Republicans contest elections and take seats in any of the
three parliaments governing this country or whether they continue
their policy of nonparticipation, there is no question of ever giving
recognition to the legitimacy of the authority of these parliaments.
The Westminster Parliament has no shred of authority, and never had,
to legislate for any part of this country. The Stormont and Leinster
House Parliaments are both puppets of Westminster set up by Act of
the Westminster parliament and not by the will of the Irish people,
North or South. Both these parliaments protect the British Imperial
interest and the interests of the Tory Ascendancy class, the Castle
Catholics, the horse Protestants and the native gombeen men.

It is our task to subvert the authority of all three parliaments and
to establish the authority of the common people in a united socialist
republic in which the brotherhood of man will make religious
differences irrelevant. Much revolutionary effort has been put into
the various campaigns of Economic Resistance and Political Action and
certain limited successes have been achieved. Thus far, however, each
activity has been carried out in isolation and those engaged in them
do not see themselves as part of a national revolutionary struggle.
Our first tasks for the seventies must he to knit them all together
so that all radical groups within the nation can work as one and
fight as one for the Re-Conquest of Ireland.

MILITARY ACTION

Those who think that political means alone are sufficient for the
Re-Conquest Of Ireland are closing their minds to the lessons of
history, not alone in Ireland but in every other country struggling
for national liberation.

If freedom can be won without violence then by all means let us win
it that way, but, let us not allow victory to be snatched from us by
those who will have no scruples about the use of violence when they
see power and wealth and privilege slipping from their grasp.

Only an armed, determined people will be listened to with respect.
While Britain claims the right to legislate for Ireland and upholds
that claim by armed force then Irishmen must he trained and ready to
resist her claim by armed force. The I.R.A. in the 70's, with its new
political consciousness, remains an army, trained, disciplined and
determined. But it is now a revolutionary army, an army of the
people, capable of developing and exploiting a revolutionary
situation for the benefit of the people, knowing when to fight and
when to melt away. It is no longer an army of militarists rigid and
inflexible, and geared only for a military campaign against British
Forces in Ireland. It has learned the bitter lessons of such
campaigns. An elitist force, divorced from the struggles of the
people, but calling on the people to support it, can never win. Each
such campaign ended in total defeat and at the end of each campaign
Ireland was less of a nation than before. We can no longer afford
such defeats. To he victorious a struggle for freedom must he a
struggle of the people. The role of the I.R.A. is to assist the
people in what is THEIR liberation struggle.

This concept of a people's campaign for the Re-Conquest of their
country rather than an armed campaign against British Occupation
Forces is the key to the fundamental difference between the I.R.A.
and other elements. It can be clearly seen in the streets of Belfast
where the I.R.A. help the people to organise the successful defence
of their own areas while other elements clear the people off the
streets with ineffective gunfire against British armour.

Now the gulf is again being widened by the sectarian activities of
those who wished to turn the Irish Republican Army into a purely
Catholic Defence Force. The task of the Irish Republican Army is to
defend the common people against physical attack from the forces of
the establishment and against economic exploitation by the forces of
capitalism and British Imperialism in both the North and South of our
country.

To prejudice Protestants against the Republican Movement it has been
emphasized that the majority of the Irish Republican Army and the
mass of republicans are mainly Catholic, and than non-Catholic
religious beliefs would not be respected in a free Ireland. It is
quite true that Republicans are now mainly Catholic simply because
the dissenters have been prevented by constant indoctrination from
embracing republicanism which should be their natural political
philosophy. But in Southern Ireland the same political and economic
interests and voices which tell Protestants that Republicans are
Catholics, tell the Catholic population of the South that Republicans
are anti-God fanatics and yearning for an opportunity to make war on
the religion to which the majority of Irish people belong. The fact
is republicans are quite unaware of religious distinctions within,
the Republican Movement. Catholic would guarantee Protestant,
Protestant would guarantee Catholic, and both would guarantee to all
Dissenters full freedom of conscience and Civil and Religious
liberty. Our history as a revolutionary movement demonstrates that in
a United and Independent Ireland This is the truth of the matter and
just now when Imperial interests are attempting to conceal themselves
behind the mad fury of religious strife, Protestant workers and all
others should combine to make certain that no such escape is provided
them.

In the process of exploitation of workers and small producers,
religion matters little to the exploiters. Orange and Republican,
Catholic and Protestant toil side by side in factory and mill, all
equally victims. Those who thus exploit mercilessly the workers'
labour and energies would let them at one another's throats, because
it is to their advantage to divide them and lead them into conflict
by arousing irrelevant religious issues and inflaming passions. In
this way they can split the organisations of the workers and render
them ineffective.

Protestant and Catholic can be found queuing shoulder to shoulder at
the unemployment bureaux waiting for the "dole". In that fast growing
queue religion or membership of the Orange Order will count for as
little as Catholicism does to the unemployed and emigrating Catholics
in the South. Nothing could be more contrary to the revolutionary
strategy of the Republican Movement than the indiscriminate bombing
and burning campaign of certain elements. It is completely sectarian
in that all targets are Protestant owned and seems designed
specifically to alienate the Protestant people from the struggle for
justice of their Catholic fellow citizens. It is anti-social in that
a number of targets are co-operative shops or stores and is thus
designed to alienate workers.

It is totally irrelevant to the peoples' struggle as the targets for
attack are neither Military, Government or Capitalist and seem to
follow no pattern or policy beyond sustaining a campaign of sorts. To
the militarist, sustaining a struggle becomes more important than
achieving victory and it is apparent that there are sinister elements
at work, which are leading some sincere people by the military ruse
to utter defeat. The Republican policy in the 26 Counties even more
clearly emphasises the new revolutionary strategy of the '7O's. The
enemy is not just British Forces in the North. The enemy is the
exploiter and oppressor of the Irish people. It is British
Imperialism, Unionism and Free Statism. All must equally be fought
and the organised resistance of the people with the constant
leadership and assistance of Republican Revolutionaries must fight
all in the same manner. Every agitationary struggle must be carried
through by the people concerned. The homeless must be organized to
fight for houses, the unemployed for jobs, and the landless for land.
When their struggle brings them face to face with superior force of
the Landlord, the Capitalist or the State they know they can call on
a Revolutionary Army for assistance. Then the I.R.A. will give
whatever help the people think is necessary to ensure victory, but
they must never act on their own initiative without the knowledge of
the people involved. A Revolutionary must remain only sufficiently
ahead of the people to give them leadership but never so far ahead as
to become isolated from them.

It is apparent that even the most successful military struggle in the
North in isolation cannot result in the establishment of an
Independent Socialist Republic. The best that could be achieved is to
put the North into the hands of Fianna Fail, either the Lynch brand
or the Haughey brand. The most vital thing is to develop a popular
struggle in the South to complement the struggle in the North so that
there can be a fusion of the people of both areas in opposition to
the Establishment of both areas: Those who say that Revolutionary
activity in the South is a stab in the back to the fight in the North
are ignoring the lessons of our history and assisting the County
Establishment to maintain their power. It is all too clear that the
stab in the back will come from the Dublin Government when the
opportunity presents itself.

To safeguard the struggle in the North it is therefore essential to
mount a massive campaign in the South to oust the collaborationists.
The economic condition, which republicans predicted as a result of
the Free Trade Agreement, are now upon us. Closures of factories are
coming thick and fast, hundreds of workers are being made redundant
owing to the full effects of the 1965 Free Trade Agreement with
Britain being felt by Irish Industry, and while small and medium
sized farmers are being driven from their holdings by social
pressures hard falling incomes. This is but a first instalment of the
effects of Free Trade in E.E.C. conditions, and should be sufficient
warning to rouse our people to the disaster that awaits our country
in the E.E.C.

Now is the time to organize workers, unemployed, farmers, homeless
etc., to agitate for their right to control of the wealth they
create. They can only exercise that right by taking power from those
who now exploit them. The Irish Republican Army, in North East Ulster
as well as in the rest of Ireland, believe that the mass of workers
and small farmer must organize behind revolutionary leadership if
they are to rescue themselves from a system within which few prosper
and the many are impoverished. It is the opinion of Republicans, a
conviction driven in on their minds by the facts of life around them
that capitalism and imperialism constitute a system of exploitation
and injustice within which the mass of the people know no real
freedom. Unemployment is today reaching dangerous proportions in
Ireland and Britain, while the three Tory Governments make economies
in Social Services, while workers real earnings are falling due to
inflationary conditions caused by speculators and profiteers, while
the same Tory Governments introduce Anti-Worker Legislation, the Six-
County Unionist Regime uses the armed force of 12,000 British troops
in an attempt to intimidate and cow fellow Irishmen, and when this
fails it resorts to indiscriminate killing, torture of men and
imprisonment without trial. The Fianna Fail regime in the 26-
Counties, attempts once more to coerce people who are assisting
dependants of prisoners by holding (collections and introduces
further repressive legislation -- the Forcible Entry Bill -- at the
behest of the property owning elements and threatens To introduce
internment in Ireland without trial in the 26 Counties in order to
aid the British in their efforts to smash the Revolutionary Movement.
For more than fifty years, since they were established, in fact, both
Governments in Ireland, both Orange and Green, Tories have had to
rely on acts of coercion and repression in order to maintain their
power and privileges. In the six Counties, the Special Powers Act,
(which has drawn praise and envy from white South African Government
Ministers), is used to oppress the people. In the 26 Counties, the
ruling classes against Republicans, Farmers and Workers have used the
notorious "Offences Against the State Act". Both of these acts have
been resisted and fought by Republicans down through the years.

The fight to establish and maintain basic civil rights and liberties
is still being fought today, North and South. History records that
any regime that hopes to maintain its power by repressive measures,
such as Special Powers Act and Offences Against the state Act, will
inevitably fall just as sure as certain that those struggling to win
FREEDOM and JUSTICE for the mass if the people will inevitably
survive.

In conjunction with repressive measures against the working class the
Establishment in Ireland and Britain have now drawn up the ŒFinal
Solution' to the "Irish Question". Their plans are to try and force
the Irish people into accepting entry to the E.E.C. where this whole
process of annihilation of the Irish Nation would be accelerated.
Total opposition of the mass of the people to the whole concept of
the E.E.C. is our major task in the coming period. This threat must
be defeated if we are to retain any hope of survival as a nation.

The Irish Republican Army can see no permanent solution of these and
other social evils except by the transfer of power over production,
distribution and exchange to the mass of the people.

The power to produce what the many require exists; its organization
and distribution presents no insoluble difficulty, but the vested
interests of a privileged minority are across the road and progress
is impossible unless the people are prepared to clear away these
obstacles. These interests that deny the rights to the many are those
on which imperialism rests. Touch or threaten these privileged
interests and the whole force of British Imperialism is invoked for
their protection. Thus it is that revolutionary Republicans See and
say that the emancipation of the mass of the Irish people is
impossible without breaking the connection with Imperial Britain and
with the system she has imposed in Ireland, North and South.

The Irish Republican Army believes that only the mass of the Irish
people Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, aided by a revolutionary
organization can defeat the forces of repression and reaction. A
struggle waged for on behalf of the interests of the people must
involve the mass of the people if it is to succeed.

*******

16 April 2004

IRSP: Free the Jailed Activists of the DHKP-C and Anti-Imperialist
Camp

The International Department of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
joins with revolutionaries around the globe in denouncing the arrest
of comrades of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front
(DHKP-C) throughout Europe. The Irish Republican Socialist Party wish
to express our solidarity with these Anatolian revolutionaries who
have become the scapegoat of European imperialism in the wake of the
bombings in Spain, as well as with the activists of the Anti-
Imperialist Camp who have bravely defended them. We further condemn
the arrests of three Italian members of the Anti-Imperialist Camp in
Perugia.

We in the IRSP have long maintained comradely relations with the DHKP-
C, who have set an example for revolutionaries around the globe by
their courage and iron will in the face of adversity, repression, and
death. Members of our movement have stood beside the members of the
DHKP-C on death fast, and DHKP-C members have stood at the gravesides
of the martyred hunger strikers of the Irish National Liberation
Army. We have come together to speak out against the isolation of
political prisoners and prisoners of war, especially those of the
class war, in the past. We speak out again now in solidarity with
them and in disgust over the imperialists of Europe using the pretext
of their 'war on terrorism' to terrorise revolutionaries within the
Turkish and Kurdish communities of Europe.

Regarding the arrests of three Italian members of the Anti-
Imperialist Camp, the IRSP recognise that the comrades of the Anti-
Imperialist Camp have been targeted by the Italian ruling class for
their militant defense of the armed resistance to the US/British
invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as for their efforts to
bring anti-imperialists from around the world into dialogue and
collective action with one another. We call upon revolutionary
socialists and anti-imperialist activists worldwide to join in the
defense of these activists and continue to support the efforts by
the Anti-Imperialist Camp to forge stronger bonds of solidarity
between revolutionary organisations throughout the world.

Anti-capitalists and anti-imperialists can no longer continue to
accept such repression by the ruling class. The working class, in
nations throughout the world, can no longer continue to prop up a
capitalist system which is maintained through the theft of their
labour power and leaves them with only misery; a system in which
useless parasites grow fat while working people starve by the
hundreds of millions. Anti-capitalists and anti-imperialists must
stand together now and demand an end to these witch-hunts, this
repression, and this tyranny.

Peadar Baile
Co-Secretary, International Department
Irish Republican Socialist Party

*******

Letters

From IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE® NEWSLIST

http://www.irishfreedomcommittee.net/
Subject: TRANSFER REQUEST for IRISH POW
Date: Tuesday, April 06, 2004

2) IFC POW DEPT. – ACTION REQUEST
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Please take a moment to COPY and PASTE the suggested text below into
an email to the Home Office in London.

Irish POW JP Hannan, currently serving a 16-Year sentence at
Whitemoor Prison in England, has requested to be transferred to
Maghaberry Prison in Ireland, where he will be closer to his family
and loved ones.

Normal procedure has been followed in his transfer request, with
papers being sent from the Home Office to Maghaberry; and the
acceptance papers from Maghaberry being sent back to the Home
Office.

However a long delay has ensued with the Home Office in London still
not acting upon the transfer.

It is JP Hannan's LEGAL RIGHT to be transferred to a prison in
Ireland, and there can be no good reason for delaying in this
transfer considering that all requirements have been met by all
parties concerned.

For EASY "INSTANT E-MAIL" to Home Office go here:
http://members.freespeech.org/irishpows/bb3/action_request_jphannan.htm

OR:
1. COPY TEXT BELOW
2. OPEN AN EMAIL TO: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
3. TITLE SUBJECT "TRANSFER OF IRISH PRISONER"
4. PASTE TEXT BELOW INTO EMAIL MESSAGE BODY
5. ADD YOUR NAME/LOCATION
6. SEND

The Irish Freedom Committee®

>>>>BEGIN SAMPLE LETTER -- COPY + PASTE

Home Office
7th Floor
50, Queen Anne's Gate
London SW1H 9AT

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing in regards to John Paul Hannan, an Irish prisoner who
is currently serving a 16-Year sentence at Whitemoor Prison.

It is my understanding that Mr. Hannan has requested transfer to
Maghaberry Prison in Ireland, where he can be closer to his family
and loved ones. I understand that the normal procedures in his
transfer request have been followed, with papers being sent from the
Home Office in London to the Prisons Service in the North of Ireland,
asking if Maghaberry will accept Mr. Hannan.

I am aware that Maghaberry Prison has since returned the transfer
paperwork to the Home Office, stating that there is no problem with
Mr. Hannan being sent home and that Maghaberry Prison will welcome
him.

I am writing today, then, to enquire why the transfer of Mr. Hannan
has been subsequently delayed and postponed, seeing that the Home
Office has received all paperwork agreeing to the transfer some time
ago.

I am concerned because it appears that Mr. Hannan's legal right to be
transferred to a prison closer to his home, is being disregarded or
overlooked for some reason. I am curious at the delay because the
authorities at Maghaberry have already agreed to the transfer, and
have stated that they will welcome Mr. Hannan there. I am therefore
unclear on why this transfer has been postponed and delayed by the
Home Office for so long.

Please advise.

Sincerely
(YOUR NAME/LOCATION HERE)

*******

What follows is the text of the Dublin Grassroots Network Mayday
leaflet. Some 50,000 copies are being distributed mostly door to door
and mostly in Dublin. PDF file on the web site.

Front cover of leaflet

Mayday Dublin 2004
For an alternative Europe

Irish people have generally seen the European Union as a good thing,
for reasons that include investment in infrastructure and farm
subsidies.

But increasingly the EU is an excuse for privatisation, for shifting
the burden of taxation onto you and for Ireland's increasing
involvement in military adventures.

We are struggling with others across Europe for a different type of
Europe, one that puts people before profit and does away with top-
down decision making. Join these protests in the struggle for an
alternative Europe.

Fortress Europe

In advance of joining the EU, the 10 accession countries have had to
open their borders to the flow of money, but the movement of the
peoples of these countries is to be limited for up to seven years. We
welcome the admission of the people of these countries, but the
governments of the EU want to keep them out as long as possible, all
the while using them as cheap labour -- profit before people.

Beyond Europe, many countries have been forced to open their markets
to European capital and to low-wage, European-owned factories.
European corporations want to use the EU as a common front to force
these harsh neo-liberal policies on the third world. Yet the people
of these countries face fences and walls if they try to enter Europe.
Many are forced to make desperate boat journeys around these barriers.

The EU's repressive anti-immigrant policies claimed the lives of at
least 3,000 people between 1993 and June 2003, people drowned in the
Mediterranean, electrocuted at the Channel Tunnel or suffocated in
Wexford. This is 10 times as many as were killed at the Berlin Wall
during its 30-year history. These policies are designed to make
immigrants illegal and force them to survive in a precarious, hunted
position, or live on short-term visas, dependent on work permits held
by their employers. In both cases they are vulnerable and open to
extreme exploitation as cheap labour. They have little access to
heath and safety enforcement, as shown by the tragic deaths of 19
Chinese people at Morecambe Bay this year.

Militarisation

The foreign policy of the European Union is based on satisfying the
interests of Big Business, irrespective of social cost. The
militarisation of the EU is evidenced in the Common Foreign and
Security Policy and the Rapid Reaction Force (the European Army).
These are the EU's tools to promote the global interests of European
multinationals. Again profit before people.

Bertie has waffled on about protecting Irish neutrality, yet he
ignored 100,000 protestors when he allowed the US to use Shannon
Airport as its major air stopover for US troops on their way to Iraq.
In 2003, 125,000 US troops passed through Shannon en route to the
Iraq war. Munitions of war, including Tomahawk, Cruise, and Patriot
missile components, as well as napalm, passed through 'neutral
Ireland'. Considering this support for the war effort of a country
that is not even an EU member, can we believe one word Bertie says
about defending Irish neutrality within the EU?

Unfair Taxation

The Irish government has used EU policy to transfer the cost of
public services from the rich to the poor. Chief amongst the methods
used has been the introduction of high levels of local taxation,
disguised as the bin tax. Environment Minister Martin Cullen has
indicated that he hopes to get the bin charge up to E700 a year and
the Government plans to introduce other new charges, such as a water
tax. In 10 years, such local charges are expected to total E1000,
which would mean people on low incomes paying 5% of their income on
service charges and the very wealthy paying 0.5%.

Between 1987 and 2001 the proportion of GDP going to Irish workers
(measured as wages) fell and the proportion going to Irish bosses
(measured as rents and profits) shot up.

Privatisation and the Lisbon Agenda

The Irish government's official EU website declares that "the Lisbon
strategy is a major priority for the Irish Presidency". The Lisbon
Agenda specifically targets "gas, electricity, postal services and
transport" for privatisation. Water, health, education and social
services will be next.

The first step in privatisation is forcing people to pay for public
services to make them profitable and attractive to investors. We can
see this here with the bin charges, the back-door reintroduction of
third level fees and the threatened privatisation of Dublin Bus and
other public services. Privatisation invariably results in worse
working conditions, greater inequality of services, lay-offs and wage
cuts as bosses seek to cut corners to maintain profits.

So who set the Lisbon Agenda? Who decided that this is how the
European economy should be run?

It is estimated that Brussels hosts some 500 industry lobby groups,
employing some 10,000 professional lobbyists. Corporations that spend
millions 'lobbying' the EU make no secret of the influence this
brings. One of the most powerful is the European Round Table of
Industrialists (ERT), which brings together more than 40 "European
industrial leaders." Ireland is represented by Michael Smurfit, while
most of the other corporations are household names across Europe,
such as BP, Unilever, Carlsberg, Fiat, Vodafone, Volvo, Philips,
Nokia, Renault and Shell.

The ERT has boasted that "at European level, the ERT has contacts
with the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European
Parliament ... Every six months the ERT meets with the government
that holds the EU presidency to discuss priorities ... At national
level, each member has personal contacts with his own national
government and parliament, business colleagues and industrial
federations, other opinion-formers and the press."

Baron Daniel Janssen of the ERT boasted that it was "very much
involved in the preparation of the [Lisbon] Summit." In Lisbon EU
policy was shaped by the 40 "industrial leaders" of the ERT and not
by the 50,000 demonstrators outside the summit building or by the
needs of the people of Europe. Now we are all required to dance to
the ERT tune.

What Sort of Europe do we want?

The groups and individuals involved in this Grassroots Network are
united by a vision of a better future, one without bosses or
governments, be they in Dublin or Brussels; one in which all local
communities are directly run by the people living in them and all
workplaces by the people working in them; a future in which everyone
has control over their own lives and an equal say in the decisions
that affect them. We are talking not just about receiving an equal
share of what is produced, but also transforming the quality of life,
doing away with long working hours and increasing free time. We
struggle for a genuinely sustainable economy and an end to
environmental policies in which every 'solution' must be corporate-
led and profit-driven.

People like you all over Europe are fighting for the same things. We
are taking to the streets not only to build our resistance in Ireland
but to forge links throughout Europe. Tens of thousands of people in
Ireland have already been involved in resisting the race for wealth
that is capitalism, which robs so many of us of our voice, our dreams
and our aspirations.

Dublin Grassroots Network - Who we are

Dublin Grassroots Network is a network of activists who come together
to fight for a better future, based on the Grassroots Principles (see
over). We are part of the Grassroots Gathering and the Grassroots
Network Against War. We operate in an open and democratic way, where
everybody has an equal say. If you want to get involved, get in touch.
Phone: 087-2820906 Email: grassrootsdublin@yahoo.com

Web: http://grassrootsgathering.freeservers.com/
and
http://struggle.ws/eufortress/

News: http://www.indymedia.ie/

Our Principles

We believe that people should control their own lives and work
together as equals. This means:

...Rejecting top-down and state-centred forms of organisation.
...Calling for solutions that involve ordinary people controlling
their own lives and having the resources to do so
...Organising for control of the workplace by those who work there.
...Calling for the control of communities by the people who live
there.
...Arguing for a sustainable environmental, economic and social
system, agreed by the people of the planet.

Mayday Menu - what's going on Actions For An Alternative Europe

Aperitif

Critical Mass - mass cycle and walk through the city 5.30 pm, Fri.
April 30th, Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Sq

Entres

No Borders Morning - actions against fortress EU 10 am Saturday May
1st, Civic Offices, Wood Quay Reclaim The City - anti-privatisation
actions 2.30pm Saturday May 1st, Grafton St. (at Stephens Green)

Main Course

Bring The Noise - March to Farmleigh House to let the EU heads of
state hear us - bring pots, pans, whistles... 6pm Sat. May 1st,
Phoenix Park (Parkgate St./Benburb St.)

Dessert

No Borders Camp - Act in solidarity with immigrants 11am Sunday May
2nd, Custom House Quay

Digestif

Reclaim The Streets - Street Party for a better future 3pm Mon. May
3rd, Ambassador Cinema, OConnell St.

*******

What's On?

*

ANTI-WAR IRELAND bulletin, 15/4/04

Anti-War Ireland is a broad-based, and inclusive, national alliance
of independent anti-war groups. It is explicitly anti-racist and anti-
sexist.

Convenor: Fintan Lane (087 1258325)
PROs: Caoimhe Butterly (087 2134160), and Tim Hourigan (087 9777703).

CONTENTS

Public meeting, Teachers' Club, Parnell Square, Dublin, 3pm on
Sunday, 18 April. Speakers will include Harry Browne, Aisling Reidy
(ICCL), the Pitstop Ploughshares, and Mary Kelly (chair).

Protest at US embassy, Dublin, 6pm on Monday, 19 April. Organised by
the IAWM.

Pitstop Ploughshares vigil at Israeli embassy, Dublin, 20 April.
Cork protest in solidarity with Iraqi people, assembling at 7pm at
Daunt Square, on Thursday, 22 April. Organised by Cork Anti-War
Campaign/Anti-War Ireland.

Anti-War Ireland organising meeting. Meeting to discuss the
forthcoming AWI national conference. This meeting will be held in
Limerick on Saturday, 24 April - for information phone Fintan Lane at
087 1258325.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past week or so, the violence and brutality of the US
occupation of Iraq has been fully exposed. The US military onslaught
on Falluja has resulted in the deaths of more than 600 people, the
majority of whom were almost certainly civilians. This collective
punishment was supposedly in retaliation for the killing and
mutilation of four private security contractors in the city, but it
is clear that the real point was to use overwhelming force to
indicate who is boss in the 'new' Iraq. In the process hundreds of
innocent men, women and children have been killed. This is an outrage.

Elsewhere, the US faces an armed uprising of Shia Muslims who have
clearly had enough of the continuing occupation of their country.
This rising has finally and savagely exposed the lie circulated by
the Bremer regime that the resistance in Iraq was composed entirely
of "former regime loyalists" and "foreign fighters". It is now clear
that the opposition to the occupation is growing among ordinary
Iraqis, both Sunni and Shia.

In Ireland, Bertie Ahern and his government continue to facilitate
the US killing machine at Shannon airport. Indeed, the extent of
Irish complicity was underlined recently when the Evening Herald
published photographs of US military aircraft landing at Baldonnel to
avail of refuelling facilities there. Ireland remains a cog in the US
war machine.

Anti-War Ireland believes that a key aim of the anti-war movement in
this country must be the ending of Irish government complicity. We
must disengage this State from the US war machine, and we must make
clear the extent of Irish opposition to the belligerence of the Bush
administration.

Anti-War Ireland is organising a national conference for 15 May to re-
organise and re-mobilise the anti-war movement in Ireland. Details
will be posted closer to the date. A meeting to organise for this
conference will be held in Limerick on Saturday, 24 April. All
welcome. Phone 087 1258325 for details.

Anti-War Ireland is also building for a large protest to be held at
Shannon airport on Friday evening, 25 June, to 'welcome' the
warmonger George W. Bush as he arrives in Ireland. We intend to meet
and greet as he arrives, to voice our objections to his
administration's actions in Iraq and elsewhere (such as his recent
support for Israeli land-grabbing in Palestine), and simultaneously
protest at the misuse of an Irish civilian airport for US military
purposes. We are hoping and expecting buses to travel from all over
Ireland, and beyond, for this demonstration.

In the meantime, the following are some upcoming anti-war activities.

(If you wish to include an event/notice in future bulletins, please
email the relevant information to irishanti-war@excite.com.)

PROTEST AT US EMBASSY

Dublin, 6.30pm on Friday, 16 April. Organised by Fairview Against the
War/Anti-War Ireland. This picket is intended to highlight Irish
anger at the massacres currently underway in Iraq. Hundreds of Iraqi
civilians have been killed in Falluja alone. We need as many people
as possible to turn up for this picket. Be there! Don't allow Bush
and his cronies feel that we are complicit by our silence. Make your
voice heard against the killing of innocent civilians by this illegal
occupation.

VIGIL OUTSIDE ISRAELI EMBASSY

Dublin April 20 - All Night Vigil at Israeli Embassy on Eve of
Vanunu's Release by Dublin Catholic Worker & Pit Stop Ploughshares
pitstopploughshares@hotmail.com phone: 087 918 4552

Support All night Vigil at Dublin's Israeli Embassy April 20 -21

The international non-violent movement against Weapons of Mass
Destruction readies itself to welcome Mordachii Vanunu's deliverance
from an Israeli prison. Vanunu has spent just short of 18 years in
prison following his kidnapping by the Mossad in Rome. Vanunu exposed
Israel's nuclear weapons program.

There will be an all night vigil outside the Israeli Embassy 122
Pembroke Rd. Dublin D4. *Begins Tuesday April 20 7.30 pm *Multi faith
service 8.30 pm *Walk to Dail Wed 11 am More info 087 918 4552
*Bring wet gear. sleeping bag, placards & banners related to Israel's
WMD & Vanunu. If possible text 087 918 4552 if you can commit to
doing part of the vigil.

CORK DEMONSTRATION IN SOLIDARITY WITH IRAQI PEOPLE

Organised by Cork Anti-War Campaign/Anti-War Ireland. Assemble at
Daunt Square at 7pm, on Thursday, 22 April. Bring home-made placards
or other symbols of your opposition to the war in Iraq. All welcome!
Further information, phone 087 1258325.

Anti-War Ireland bulletin, 15/4/04
by Fintan Lane - Convenor, Anti-War Ireland Thursday, Apr 15 2004,
9:22pm

email: irishanti-war@excite.com
phone: 087 1258325

*

Remember Palestine at Belfast May Day March Saturday 1st May:12.00pm
Annual May Day March in Belfast City Centre The IPSC will be
represented as usual in this year's march the theme of which is March
against racism! Come along and show your support for the cause of
Palestine. Bring flags and posters. Join 6000 trade unionists and
working people in the annual May Day March through Belfast city
centre accompanied by brass, pipe and samba bands Assemble College of
Art, Lower Donegall Street, Belfast, 12pm for speeches before the
march through the City centre past the City hall and into St George's
Market at the back of the City Hall. Afterwards take part in the
Family festival in St. George's Market 1pm-5pm, where there will be
food stalls and family entertainment.

*

The 5th William Thompson Weekend takes place at the Firkin Crane
Centre in Cork over the May bank holiday weekend.

The theme this year is 'Class' and a full programme will be posted
closer to the date.

FUNDRAISER

Fundraising gig in Support of William Thompson Weekend will take
place in Spalpin Fanach Pub, South Main Street Cork on April 15 from
8.30pm.

Acts include: Red Sea Pedestrians, Snatch (Comedy Improvisation),
Diarmuid O'Dalaigh and Friends.

Adm E8 or E6 Concession

*******

Please feel free to comment on the contents of the Plough. We welcome
political comments and criticisms.

If you know of anybody who might wish to receive the Plough please
send his or her e-mail address to johnmartinps@eircom.net.

If you wish to receive back copies of the "The Plough" please e-mail
to johnmartinps@eircom.net stating which numbers you wish.

To unsubscribe to the Plough please send e-mail
entitled "unsubscribe" to johnmartinps@eircom.net.

It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and
articles from other sources.

Subscribe to the bi-monthly
"The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta"
P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.
THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!
Email: starry_plough@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.irsm.org/irsp/starryplough/

Fighting Fund/Donations
To: The Starry Plough
First Trust Bank, Derry, BT48 6BU
Account No. 14986015 Sort Code No. 93-86-10

http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html (Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na
h-Éireann)
http://www.wageslave.org/jcs/ (James Connolly Society)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/ (James Connolly Archive)

The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP
http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/

Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/

Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526

*

Support the IRSP

Standing Order Form

To the Manager First Trust Bank, Andersonstown.

Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
93-84-75

The sum of:
Amount in words:

Commencing date: and thereafter every month till further notice.

And debiting A/C number:

Name (Please print clearly):
Date:

Address:


Signature:

The Plough Vol 01 No 34

The Plough #34
11 April 2004

E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party

1) Easter Commemoration Speech
2) Statement on Behalf of Republican Socialist POWs
3) FIRSCA Easter Message
4) James Connolly ­-- Irish Socialist
5) Letters
6) What's On?

*******

Easter Commemoration Speech on Behalf of the Republican Socialist
Movement, Milltown Cemetery, Belfast -- 11 April 2004

Once more we gather to pay homage to those who died in the struggle
for an Irish Republic. We honour all those who, since the emergence
of Irish Republicanism at the end of the 18th century, fought and
died in the struggle for national independence and freedom. We
remember also with pride the many thousands, nay hundreds of
thousands of people, who contributed in many small ways to aid the
struggle.

We also remember that this Easter is the 88th since the 1916 Easter
uprising, an uprising for national independence against an
imperialist power fighting an imperialist war. The failure of that
uprising and the subsequent failure of the war of independence to
achieve liberation led to, in the words of James Connolly,
republican, socialist, Marxist, and a leader of the 1916 uprising, "a
carnival of reaction."

Still today despite a heroic struggle over the past 35 years by
republicans we have still failed to realise the vision of Connolly --
the socialist republic. And like in Connolly's time we have an
imperialist war being waged by the USA/Brit coalition forces, in
Iraq. Imperialism is still the enemy.

Today as we stand here by the graves of those of our comrades from
both the IRSP and the INLA who fell in the struggle we remember them
not as heroes or martyrs but as ordinary men and women who lived in
extraordinary times and rose to the challenge of those times.

Let us be clear about what the armed struggle was about from the
perspective of this movement --­ it was neither to achieve
equality nor to achieve civil rights. The INLA took up arms, and all
the comrades who died on hunger strike, in action, or by
assassination, took up arms to achieve a Republic that cherished all
the children of the nation equally. We rejected living under British
and unionist rule for that rule was unjust, discriminatory,
arbitrary, despotic, and imperialistic.

But times change and the strategy and tactics of republicans have to
change as well. We in the Republican Socialist Movement have accepted
the need to modify our tactics to meet the changed times we live in.
We have embarked on a process of politicisation both internally and
externally to encourage people to take responsibility for their own
community. We see that as part of the process of empowering the
working class to begin to take control of the state and begin the
task of building a socialist society.

Here is the challenge facing us. As political activists we must re-
think strategically, debate strategically, and decide what is best
for our party, for the cause we represent, and most importantly for
the people we represent. We recognise that members of our movement
have made mistakes and our organisation has made mistakes in the
past. No doubt we will make mistakes in the future.

But our analysis of the peace process, or as some prefer to call it
the pacification programme, and the Good Friday Agreement, has been
and continues to be spot on. Every thing that has happened since 1998
has justified our position. Six years on from the GFA, British
soldiers are on the streets, the British intelligence services
continue to cover up past killings, street clashes continue,
loyalists continue to target Catholics, and justice is denied. Dessie
O'Hare is still a political prisoner as the Free Staters renege on
their own Good Friday Agreement. Republican prisoners in Maghaberry
are denied recognition of their political status. Something which was
won by the deaths of the ten republican hunger strikers was
negotiated away by other republicans for the price of seats in an
internal Stormont Executive.

The gap between rich and poor widens. Working class communities
disintegrate, besieged by poor health, anti-social behaviour, debt,
and despair. Homelessness has reached crisis point. The education
system is failing large sections of our youth. Attacks on minorities
are on the increase. Did our comrades buried here today die for this?

Everyday around us we see the inequality, the poverty, the wrecked
lives, the disintegration of whole working class communities. Where
there once was solidarity, collectivism, co-operation, and community
support now there is individualism, selfishness, greed, and a
widespread drug dependency culture. Consumerism is the new god and we
now have a generation growing up inculcated with the worst values of
capitalism.

The one hundred wealthiest Irish people's combined fortune is worth
23 billion Euros. The ten richest people in Ireland are each sitting
on an average fortune of 800 million Euros. For most of us here it
would take us at least 30,000 years to save that if we banked our
complete wages every week.

The Flood and Moriarty Tribunals have shown the extent of the
corruption of political life in the 26 counties. Not a week passes
without some new revelation about the corrupting influence of money
in Irish political life. Leinster House is, in the words of Karl
Marx, "nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the
whole bourgeoisie."

In Britain, New Labour grovels to big business. Blair and Brown no
longer make any pretence to be socialist and rarely mention
inequality while they socialise with the business classes. Lobbyists
and pressure groups push their cases for reduced taxation,
regulation, or planning restrictions, while multinational firms
hardly need to make the point that if they are not granted special
terms they can take their money out of Britain and Ireland. Even our
little local farce of a Stormont had its lobbyists cajoling
influencing and corrupting our Assembly members when they had their
little bit of power. The rich may not govern, but they still reign
both in Ireland and Britain. The capitalist class owes its allegiance
only to its money and self-interest.

Community workers and activists in working class communities north
and south are doing heroic work to try and empower local people to
resist the worst ravages of capitalism, but in order for the working
class to be mobilised into struggle in support of its own class
interests, class-consciousness must be raised and the shackles
imposed by capitalists must be cast off.

It is our primary concern to mobilise the working class towards the
revolutionary transformation of society and the sooner every one of
us here today takes on responsibility to make a difference to our
society the better. No one should stand idly by while racism,
injustice, poverty, exploitation, and sectarianism predominate.

The Brits have lied, prevaricated, and twisted and turned every which
way but loose. Does anyone here today seriously believe one word of
Blair's or indeed of Paul Murphy, his local governor? Trimble has by
his appalling comments on Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson bared
naked the racist sectarian hatred of the unionist middle classes for
nationalists. Attempts to reform the Northern state that are based on
the continuation of British sovereignty are doomed to failure.

It always was and still is a failed political entity and we believe
that the smashing of the Northern state will be in the interests of
all of the Northern people whether they describe themselves as
unionist, nationalist, or other. The conflict here was not one
between two mutually hostile sectarian communities as the Brits like
the world to think.

Those who would seek to challenge the continuation of sectarianism in
the six counties need to challenge those guilty of sectarianism, not
those of us in the republican socialist tradition who recognise the
existence of a British working class within Ireland with a distinct
history and culture. We welcome with open arms members of any ethnic
community who share our perspective that the class struggle and
national liberation struggle are inseparable within the Irish
context. And can we say to the ethnic minorities in Ireland that we
utterly condemn and oppose the proposed referendum in the South of
Ireland as a cynical racist ploy by unscrupulous politicians playing
the race card.

Sometimes there is confusion of what constitutes "the national
liberation struggle." Our struggle for socialism is part of an
international struggle. We support all those struggling against
imperialism worldwide. We salute the freedom fighters of Iraq and
call for the defeat of the British and American forces.

However unlike some of the so-called socialists gathered around the
Eamonn McCann European Election Machine, we are consistently anti-
imperialists. We believe that there is an imperialist presence in
Ireland and as republicans our comrades, whom we honour here today,
fought and died opposing that imperialism. They did not die for a
nationalist Ireland. They died for the liberation of all the working
class from reactionary ideologies and for the establishment of a
Workers' Republic.

It is within the context of the nation-state that the socialist
revolution will start. To achieve that revolution we must win the
support of the mass of the population. We as the Republican Socialist
Movement cannot on our own create the Republic. It can only be done
by the support, participation, and enthusiasm of the majority of
people on the island. That, comrades, is what the national struggle
is about.

Last year in a statement the leadership of the INLA said, "We have
encouraged our membership and supporters to become actively involved
in the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people. Such political
involvement is following the example of our founder Seamus Costello.
A revolutionary army without a clear base of political understanding
and activity is no longer a revolutionary army."

Note that last sentence, comrades. No revolutionary movement can last
without clear politics and based on a correct appreciation of the
needs of the people. Ta Power used the phrase "the primacy of
politics." That must be our watchword today, the primacy of politics.
Our function as a movement is to give leadership and to empower the
working class to achieve its own liberation. If that is not what we
are about then we may as well pack up and support the Good Friday
Agreement, join Sinn Fein or the Labour Party or some other party
that accepts and works for the status quo.

It is easy to be critical of others. But there is a responsibility on
us to make ourselves relevant both to the short term and long term
needs of the working class in Ireland. It is not enough to turn up
once a year at a commemoration, salute dead comrades, and think that
is enough. It is not, nor is turning up for demonstrations, chanting
a few slogans, shaking clenched fists at the police, and retiring to
the pub thinking you have struck a blow for the revolution. That,
comrades, is frankly bullshit.

If that is what any of you gathered here today are about then walk
away from the struggle now. You do neither yourselves nor the working
class any good.

Serious followers of Connolly, Costello, Power, and Gallagher are in
this struggle for the long haul. They will be there on the picket
lines, in the community halls, at trade union meetings, wherever
there is a struggle for the rights of the ordinary man and women then
that is where the serious followers of our founders will be. They
will be at the barricade, they will be behind the word processor,
they will like today commemorating but then the next day will be
agitating, educating, leafleting, and liberating. Comrades, there is
no finer calling in this world than to stand shoulder to shoulder
with the victims of oppression, with the marginalised, and with the
poor.

On to the Republic -- On to Socialism!!

*******

Statement on Behalf of Republican Socialist POWs

Today we remember with honour and pride our fallen comrades who made
the ultimate sacrifice in giving their lives for Irish liberation and
the cause of socialism. Our thoughts are with them and their families
and loved ones. We take the opportunity to send solidarity greetings
to all our supporters, comrades and friends on the outside,
especially to the POW Department, TNF, and to the IRSP for the
tireless work and steadfast commitment you have shown in support of
the Republican Socialist prisoners in Portlaoise and Castlerea.

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere
gratitude to Mr Eddie McGarrigle TNF for your unselfish commitment,
tireless work, and devotion to the cause you serve with distinction,
we salute and applaud you, for you are an inspiration to us all. To
our support groups in Britain, Europe, and North America, your work
makes Ireland's revolutionary struggle possible. To the working class
communities from where we draw our support among the unemployed,
marginalised, and disenfranchised, we salute you for your pain is our
pain, your anger is our anger, your struggle is our struggle, and
your freedom will be our freedom.

We salute the leadership of the Republican Socialist Movement in its
endeavours not only to raise the profile of the IRSP, which it has
done with relative success, but to show that we have a distinct brand
of politics. We welcome the programme of politicisation of the
membership of the IRSM both internally and externally.

We as Republican Socialist Prisoners due to the close proximity to
other Republican Prisoners within the confines of our imprisonment
enjoy a fraternal relationship built on mutual respect and
understanding for one another, we engage in political debate and
dialogue in a climate of comradeship and appreciation of one's
political affiliation. For years the IRSP has called for broad based
forums that are representative of all shades of republicanism. We
call on the IRSP to redouble their efforts to break down barriers for
it is amazing how open dialogue based on an equal footing can
dissolve any ill founded perceptions of one another.

Our movement has made many advances over the past few years due to
the discipline and unity of purpose displayed by all comrades. We
have moved into a new era. The primacy of politics prevails and our
movement is becoming stronger. The attempts to marginalise our
movement have been resisted. As Republican Socialists we can look to
the future with confidence in the knowledge that our politics are
correct and the confidence that comes from belonging to a dynamic,
growing movement is evident.

Remember the words of the 1916 leader James Connolly when he
said, "If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green
flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the
Socialist Republic, your efforts would be in vain. England would
still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through
her landlords, through her financiers, through her array of
commercial and industrial institutions she has planted in this
country..."

Comrades, friends, relatives of our martyred dead, as we walk away
from this graveyard ponder not on the dead but on the living. No one
can predict the future. But if everyone here played just a small role
in fighting injustice and oppression then the dawning of a new day in
political life in Ireland would be that much closer.

Onward to Victory!

*******

Federation of Irish Republican Socialist Committees Abroad

Easter Message

Comrades and friends:

The members of the Federation of Irish Republican Socialist Committees
Abroad send greetings of solidarity to the comrades of the Irish
Republican Socialist Party, the volunteers of the Irish National
Liberation Army, and the prisoners of war of the Irish Republican
Socialist Movement.

At Easter we are mindful of the martyrs who have fallen in pursuit of
national liberation and socialism in Ireland, and so we cannot avoid
sadness in reflecting on the loss suffered by our struggle through
their deaths and the sorrow of their comrades, families, friends, and
loved ones. However, we choose not to dwell on this loss, but instead
to take renewed inspiration from their example.

These are exciting times to be an Irish Republican Socialist. Our
movement has grown in size, strength, and influence. This growth is
reflected in the expanded support for the IRSM internationally, with
new chapters established in North America and Europe and new
supporters continuously being gathered in Australia, New Zealand,
Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It has also been reflected in the
IRSP's participation in the Anti-Imperialist Camp, a republican
socialist event in Wales, African Liberation Day events, and the
Black Cross political prisoners conference in the United States last
year; as well as providing a speaker at an event associated with the
recent conference of the Scottish Socialist Party just last month. It
has also been reflected in the IRSP's increased participation in
events opposing the use of Shannon Airport by US military aircraft,
the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and through the expanding of
international relations with revolutionary socialist and anti-
imperialist organisations throughout the world.

We applaud the IRSP's preparation for a series of new and vigorous
campaigns that will provide a model for revolutionary struggle for the
whole of the Irish working class. We are proud that the IRSP has
reasserted its commitment to a revolutionary course and rejected the
siren song of reformism that has caused the downfall of so many
revolutionary organisations in Ireland in the past. The members of
FIRSCA, your comrades abroad, renew our own commitment to supporting
the IRSP in upholding a revolutionary tradition in its struggle for
national liberation and socialism in Ireland.

Nothing less than a 32-county Irish workers' republic will serve as a
fitting tribute to the sacrifice of our movement's martyrs and to all
those who have died, suffered incarceration, and endured repression
and abuse in pursuit of the self-liberation of the working people of
Ireland. It is our pledge to continue our own efforts to make
attaining this goal a reality.

It is the working class that has plowed the soil, built the cities,
dug the mines, erected the factories, laid the roads, navigated the
seas, in short created all of the wealth of society today. It is
we, the working class, who enable every wheel to turn, every obstacle
to be surmounted, every advance to be made. It is long past due that
we should claim for our own these things we ourselves have created.
It is long past time that we should be the authors of our own destiny.

Forward to the Workers' Republic, comrades!

*******

James Connolly ­-- Irish Socialist

The following taken from the web site "Arguments for a Workers'
Republic" is reprinted here because
amid all the commemorations of the Easter Rising it is sometimes
forgotten just what a towering figure James Connolly was. The
following gives a flavour of the man.

[From Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, "The Rebel Girl," International
Publishers NY, 1979]

In 1907, During the campaign to free Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, I
was invited to speak at a meeting, in Newark, New Jersey, arranged by
the Socialist Labor Party. There was protest against my acceptance by
the New Jersey Socialist Party, which had either not been invited to
participate or had refused. I felt I should go anywhere to speak for
this purpose. Our rostrum was an old wagon, set up in Washington
Park. The horse was inclined to run when there was loud applause, so
he was taken out of the wagon shafts. This meeting is an
unforgettable event in my life because it was here I first met James
Connolly, the Irish Socialist speaker, writer and labor organizer who
gave his life for Irish freedom nine years later in the Easter Week
Uprising of 1916 in Dublin.

At the time I refer to he worked for the Singer Sewing Machine
Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and had a hard struggle to support
his wife and six small children. He lost his job when he tried to
organize a union in the plant. He was short, rather stout, a plain-
looking man with a large black moustache, a very high forehead and
dark sad eyes, a man who rarely smiled. A scholar and an excellent
writer, his speech was marred for American audiences by his thick,
North of Ireland accent, with a Scotch burr from his long residence
in Glasgow. On the Washington Park occasion someone spilled a bottle
of water in his hat, the only one he possessed undoubtedly, and with
a wry expression on his face he shook it out and dried it, but made
no complaint.

Connolly and I spoke again in 1907 at an Italian Socialist meeting
early one Sunday morning. I wondered then why they arranged their
meetings at such an odd hour but discovered it was a substitute for
church among these rabid anticlericals, and happily did not interfere
with their sacred ritual of the big spaghetti and vino dinner later
on. I asked Connolly: 'Who will speak in Italian?' He smiled his rare
smile and replied, 'We'll see. Someone, surely.' After we had both
spoken, they took a recess and gave us coffee and cake behind the
scenes, a novel but welcome experience for us. Stale water was the
most we got elsewhere! Then we returned to the platform and Connolly
arose. He spoke beautifully in Italian to my amazement and the
delight of the audience who 'viva'd' loudly.

Later he moved his family to Elton Avenue in the Bronx and the
younger children of our families played together. Once, Patrick Quin-
lan, a family friend who had left a bookcase with a glass door at
Connolly's house, was horrified to find all the books on the floor
and the Flynn-Connolly children playing funeral, with one child
beautifully laid out in the bookcase. 'Who's dead?' Connolly
asked. 'Quinlan,' they replied serenely. Needless to say, the
children did not like Quinlan.

Connolly worked for the IWW and had an office at Cooper Square. He
was a splendid organizer, as his later work for the Irish Transport
Workers, with James Larkin, demonstrated. Although the Socialist
Labor Party had invited him here in 1902 on a lecture tour and he was
elected a member of their National Executive Committee, there was
obvious jealousy displayed against him by their leader, Daniel De
Leon, who could brook no opposition. Connolly had been one of the
founders in 1896 of the Irish Socialist Republican Party in Dublin
and editor of its organ. Connolly's position that the Irish Socialist
Party represented a separate nation from Britain was recognised by
the International Socialist Congress in 1900, and the Irish delegates
were allowed to take their seats as such.

When membership in the SLP became impossible for him here, he joined
the Socialist Party and toured the country under its auspices.
Connolly was the first person I ever heard use the
expression, 'Workers' Republic'; in fact, he is called by one
biographer, 'the Irish apostle of the Soviet idea,' though none of us
ever heard the word in those days. (Only later did I learn that
Soviets first arose in the Russian Revolution of 1905.)

He felt keenly that not enough understanding and sympathy was shown
by American Socialists for the cause of Ireland's national
liberation, that the Irish workers here were too readily abandoned by
the Socialists as 'reactionaries' and that there was not sufficient
effort made to bring the message of socialism to the Irish-American
workers. In 1907 George B. McClellan, Mayor of New York City, made a
speech in which he said: 'There are Russian Socialists and Jewish
Socialists and German Socialists! But, thank God! there are no Irish
Socialists!' This was a challenge to Connolly, my father and a host
of others with good Irish names, members of both the Socialist
parties. They banded together as the Irish Socialist Club, later
known as the Irish Socialist Federation. James Connolly was chairman
and my sister Katherine was secretary. She was then 15 years old.
Connolly was strong for encouraging 'the young people.'

The Irish Socialist Federation caused great protest among the other
existing federations. The others insisted we didn't need a federation
because we weren't foreign-speaking. We wanted a banner we could
fight under. The Unity Club required us to be too placating, too
peaceful. The Federation was born one Sunday afternoon at our house
in the Bronx. Connolly, Quinlan, O'Shaughnessy, Cooke, Cody, Daly,
Ray, all the Flynns, were there; also our faithful Jewish friend, Sam
Stodel, who was sympathetic to our proposal. But we excluded him as
we feared ridicule if we included a Jew.

He went into the kitchen and said to my mother: 'Have you any-thing
for this bunch to eat?' She confessed she had not, so he went around
the corner and bought ham, cheese, corned beef, beer, crackers, etc.,
to feed the doughty Irish when their session was over. Nourished by
Sam, we went forth to battle. The Federation arranged street meetings
to show that Mayor McClellan was an ignoramus and a liar, especially
in Irish neighbourhoods where such meetings had never been held. It
had a large green and white banner, announcing who and what it was,
with the Gaelic slogan, Faugh-a-Balach (Clear the Way) in big letters
surrounded by harps and shamrocks. The meetings were stormy but
finally accepted at many corners. A German blacksmith comrade built
the Federation a sturdy platform that could not easily be upset, with
iron detachable legs that could be used as 'shillelaghs' in an
emergency. These helped to establish order at the meetings, and won a
wholesome respect for the Federation.

The Federation issued a statement of its purposes (written by James
Connolly): 'To assist the revolutionary working class movement in
Ireland by a dissemination of its literature; to educate the working
class Irish of this country into a knowledge of Socialist principles
and to prepare them to cooperate with the workers of all other races,
colours, and nationalities in the emancipation of labor.' James
Connolly wrote one book, Labour in Irish History, one play and many
pamphlets. His extensive writings were spread out over many years in
various workers' papers and magazines.

He published a monthly magazine, The Harp. Many poems from his own
pen appeared. It was a pathetic sight to see him standing, poorly
clad, at the door of Cooper Union or some other East Side hall,
selling his little paper. None of the prosperous professional Irish,
who shouted their admiration for him after his death, lent him a
helping hand at that time. Jim Connolly was anathema to them because
he was a 'Socialist.'

He had no false pride and encouraged others to do these Jimmy Higgins
tasks by setting an example. At the street meetings he persuaded
those who had no experience in speaking to 'chair the meeting' as a
method of training them. Connolly had a rare skill, born of vast
knowledge, in approaching the Irish workers. He spoke the truth
sharply and forcefully when necessary, as in the following from The
Harp of November 1900:

'To the average non-Socialist Irishman the idea of belonging to an
international political party is unthinkable, is obnoxious, and he
feels that if he did, all the roots of his Irish nature would be dug
up. Of course, he generally belongs to a church --­ the Roman
Catholic Church --­ which is the most international institution in
existence. That does not occur to him as atrocious, in fact he is
rather proud than otherwise that the Church is spread throughout the
entire world, that it overleaps the barriers of civilisation,
penetrating into the depths of savagedom, and ignores all
considerations of race, colour or nationality. . . . But although he
would lay down his life for a Church which he boasts of as 'Catholic'
or universal, he turns with a shudder from an economic or political
movement which has the same characteristics.'

Connolly published The Harp here as the official organ of the Irish
Socialist Federation, and moved it to Dublin in 1910.



*******

Letters

The Irish News of Friday March 26th in its "Platform series carried
an article by the deputy leader of the Social and Democratic Labour
Party, Alisdair McDonnell. If this is what passes for leadership,
well then, God help us all!!! Obviously Alisdair has been trained in
the George Bush/Tony Blair school of politics -- don't let the facts
get in the way of a good spin.

Twice the Deputy leader of the SDLP got his facts clearly wrong.

Quote 1- "The events in Ardoyne since the new year where more than a
dozen despairing teenagers have committed suicide"

Quote 2-"When the world outside got the message it was already too
late with 13 suicides in six weeks. And as the bodies of teenage
suicide victims stacked up, local Provos blamed everyone but
themselves"

I am emphatically no apologist for the Provos but it certainly sticks
in one's throat to see a so-called respectable politician using the
tragic deaths of two young Ardoyne men as a stick to beat his
political opponents.

The fact is that there were only two suicides in the Ardoyne for the
period mentioned by McDonnell. There were 13 suicides in the wider
North Belfast area. North Belfast covers a huge area and has about 10
times the population of Ardoyne. It would be interesting to see
comparable figures of suicides for other areas in the same period.
Only recently in one week there were three suicides in one area of
Belfast but thankfully no one has tried to make political capital out
of them.

Gerry Ruddy

*******

What's On?

Mayday No Borders

Dublin Grassroots Network - Mayday No Borders weekend line-up of
events

For more information, downloadable flyers, and contact details please
visit the website at http://www.geocities.com/eufortress/

Friday April 30th

CRITICAL MASS began in San Francisco in 1992 and has since spread
around the world. Join us for this celebration of non-motorised
transport, as we take a leisurely tour of the city streets, on bikes,
skateboards, pogo sticks, or just on foot.

Saturday May 1st (daytime)

BORDER CONTROLS STREET THEATRE: Welcome to the official day of the
new Fortress Europe. Warning: You may be subject to stops by one of
the Dublin Grassroots Police Network who will be patrolling the city
in the morning. Experience the full reality of Fortress Europe with
ID & background checks, verbal harassment, intimidation, and possible
imprisonment without trial if you do not measure up to the strict
criteria.

BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS: During the war on Iraq, many private and state
businesses supported the transport of murderous arms and US troops
through Shannon Airport in Ireland. This action will make the public
aware of who they are by painting the streets and footpaths around
their premises in blood red colour. No war should ever be supported
for profit.

WELCOME THE BOAT PEOPLE: Many asylum seekers and refugees attempting
to breach the Fortress Europe barrier do so in boats and ships. Upon
detection, they are often sent back to their country of origin. This
time however, the people arriving by boat will be welcomed. No human
being is illegal - everyone should be free to travel and live where
they want without fear of persecution.

HOMES NOT JAILS: Dublin expands, swallowing up the countryside. Rents
skyrocket and house prices are beyond the reach of many with average
incomes. The number of homeless people sleeping on the streets rises
every year without any action by the State. Yet all around the city
are derelict buildings, crumbling into the ground. This action aims
to highlight this appalling situation by occupying one of these
buildings and transforming it into a living space.

PUBLIC BEATINGS STREET THEATRE: Europe is reverting to old-style
policing and jailing policies. Rather than look at what causes crime
and dealing with problems in society, the State increasingly utilises
prisons (often in terrible unsanitary condition) as a way of sweeping
the issues under the carpet. How long before the stocks and gallows
make a return? Today's the day. Come along and watch true medieval
punishment methods.

THE POLLUTER PAYS: The message during the recent anti bin tax
campaign was to tax the polluter. Is the public responsible for waste
when companies release their products in layers of unnecessary
packaging? How much waste is produced by heavy industry that is not
recycled? These actions will be encouraging everyone to bring their
recyclable packaging back to the businesses that produce it.

RECLAIM THE CITY: The idea of the "common or public space is rapidly
disappearing from the city, as rich and powerful individuals claim it
for private personal use. This action will temporarily reclaim a part
of private land, and open it to the public for a picnic and games in
the May sunshine.

Saturday May 1st (evening)

BRING THE NOISE! The EU Ministers dine in the opulence of Farmleigh
House on Saturday evening at the expense of the Irish taxpayer. We
intend to march to their doorstep and disrupt their dinner, to show
them that we do not agree with their vision of Fortress Europe! Bring
pots and pans, bells and whistles, horns and drums to generate the
biggest noise possible. May 1st is historically a day for the
ordinary people's wishes to be heard. They have chosen to ignore us
but they cannot keep it up if we scream and shout.

Sunday May 2nd

NO BORDERS, NO NATIONS - NO BORDER CAMP: Join us as we set up a No
Border camp on the 2nd day of the new Fortress Europe. We are not
against the new ascension states citizens coming to Ireland - we
think all refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants should be allowed
to travel here, regardless of origin, ethnicity, or background. The
No Border camp will be open to everyone. Activities will include
workshops, discussions, teach-ins, planning for the future, as well
as music and food.

Monday May 3rd

NO BORDERS RECLAIM THE STREETS: The only party worth joining in town!
Reclaim The Streets happens again on the May bank holiday to wind
down the weekend. Unlike the State's street party, everyone from
around the world is welcome to come to Dublin for this, not just
those that satisfy the demands of Fortress Europe. Expect music and
dancing, drinking and face painting, a day for all to come and enjoy
a vision of the Europe that we really want.

*******

Please feel free to comment on the contents of the Plough. We welcome
political comments and criticisms.

If you know of anybody who might wish to receive the Plough please
send his or her e-mail address to johnmartinps@eircom.net.

If you wish to receive back copies of the "The Plough" please e-mail
to johnmartinps@eircom.net stating which numbers you wish.

To unsubscribe to the Plough please send e-mail
entitled "unsubscribe" to johnmartinps@eircom.net.

It is the policy of the Plough to acknowledge information and
articles from other sources.

Subscribe to the bi-monthly
"The Starry Plough/An Camchéachta"
P.O. Box 1981, Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland.
THE VOICE OF REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM!
Email: starry_plough@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.irsm.org/irsp/starryplough/

Fighting Fund/Donations
To: The Starry Plough
First Trust Bank, Derry, BT48 6BU
Account No. 14986015 Sort Code No. 93-86-10

http://www.irsm.org/irsm.html (Pairtí Poblachtach Sóisialach na
h-Éireann)
http://www.wageslave.org/jcs/ (James Connolly Society)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/ (James Connolly Archive)

The Republican Socialist Forum from Derry IRSP
http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/

Republican Socialist Online Merchandise - A website that offers a
central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/

Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526

*

Support the IRSP

Standing Order Form

To the Manager First Trust Bank, Andersonstown.

Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
93-84-75

The sum of:
Amount in words:

Commencing date: and thereafter every month till further notice.

And debiting A/C number:

Name (Please print clearly):
Date:

Address:


Signature: