The Plough Vol 02 No 38

The Plough
Vol. 2- No 38

E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Party
Wednesday June 1st 2005



1)Waterside Bomb Attack

2) Dublin drug gangs.

3)Successes of the Good Friday Agreement! Part One

4)Successes of the Good Friday Agreement! Part Two

5)Successes of the Good Friday Agreement! Part Three

6)Fruits of the Good Friday Agreement.

7)Speech at Patsy O’Hara Commemoration

8) Letters Aiden Hulme - a further miscarriage of justice victim!

9)What’s On




Waterside Bomb Attack

Last week an elaborate hoax-bomb was placed under the car of an IRSP member in the Waterside area of Derry. This attack was obviously carried out by loyalists with the sinister intention of creating fear and intimidation. Unfortunately people living in this area have suffered similar attacks in the past but are not deterred from going about their normal day to day business. A claim of responsibility by the "Loyalist Action Force" was received. Initially it was believed that the UDA were behind the attack, but subsequent investigations by the Republican Socialist movement revealed the attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of the UVF. Such an isolated attack coming out of the blue raises the question why now? Whose hand was behind the bomb?
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Dublin drug gangs.

Also last week a small time drug dealer was shot dead in Dublin and a statement purportedly from the Dublin INLA threatened to revenge his death. Indeed a number of Dublin newspapers regularly refer to an INLA drug gang in Tallagh. For the record it has been made clear to us that no statement was issued by the INLA in Dublin and there is no INLA drug gang in Tallagh.

There are drug dealers throughout Dublin who use the name of the INLA.They have no connects with the republican socialist movement and are low life scum living off the misery of drug addicts.

If any of our readers know who these low lifes are please contact the IRSP with the information.


Successes of the Good Friday Agreement! Part One

While Catholics in general remain twice as likely to be on the dole queue as Protestants, Catholic women are three-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed than Protestant women in the North. These figures are from official British government Labour Force Survey statistics. The survey was conducted on a quarterly basis for the 12 months between winter 2003-04 and autumn 2004.
Since the late sixties, the unemployment differential between Catholics and Protestants has been regarded as a crucial indicator of inequality across the North. Despite all the good intentions within the Good Friday Agreement it was five years later that in April 2003, the British government pledged in a joint declaration with the Irish government to take effective action that would tackle the unemployment differential “by targeting objective need”.
Throughout the troubles, the unemployment differential has remained virtually static, with Catholics consistently at least twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants. This in spite of successive fair-employment laws introduced in 1976, 1989, 1991 and 1998.
The figures demonstrate that, for Catholic women in particular, the prospects are deteriorating. These differentials do nothing to promote class unity


Successes of the Good Friday Agreement! Part Two

The official 2005 deprivation statistics for the North were published last week. According to the deprivation statistics, the predominantly nationalist parliamentary constituencies of Belfast West, Foyle and West Tyrone are among the four areas of the North with the highest proportion of deprived citizens. The strongly unionist constituencies of Lagan Valley, North Down, South Antrim and Strangford have the lowest proportions of people living in deprived conditions.

Successes of the Good Friday Agreement! Part Three

The British government ban that prevents Irish citizens from gaining employment in the North’s senior civil service will remain in place for at least another 12 months. Based on recruitment trends over 30 years, the senior civil service could not achieve fair representation until at least 2057. At present, just one in four senior civil servants is Catholic.
The following quote
“the type of discrimination that took place [in the North] in previous decades, all of that has disappeared.”
was made by Free State foreign affairs minister Dermot Ahearn. There is none so blind as those who can not see.









Fruits of the Good Friday Agreement.

“In our previous report we said that INLA remained a significant terrorist group whose members had been active in violence and organised crime.
INLA’s activities and potential remain essentially the same although the level of activity is not high and it has not shot or assaulted people as it had in the previous six month periods. Members of INLA remain very actively involved in organised crime, including drugs. We believe it was responsible for the robbery of some £100,000 worth of goods from Debenhams in Belfast in October 2004, and that a few days before its members had stolen a similar sum from the Ulster Bank in Strabane having coerced an employee of the branch through threats to the lives of his family. The threat of the organisation’s more active re-engagement remains.”(International Monitoring Commission Report Number Five)
“The same issues of association between political parties with elected members and paramilitary groups do not arise with the dissident republicans, and their intentions are a great deal clearer. Both the paramilitary groups themselves – CIRA, INLA and RIRA– and the associated political parties – Republican Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, and the Thirty Two County Sovereignty Movement – are committed to the achievement of a united Ireland by any means, including the use of violence terrorist violence and organised crime and each is committed to the use of violence to further its aims. The restraint is not their intentions but their capacity. “.”(International Monitoring Commission Report Number Five)
We are sorry to bore our readers with the above two quotes from the IMC but it is necessary to expose the total inadequacy of this puerile body. Factually they are inaccurate. The INLA is not involved in drugs. No member of the INLA is in jail or on remand for drug related offences. The INLA is opposed to drugs.
Furthermore the republican socialist movement is not a dissident organisation. Unlike both RSF and 32 CSM we were never part of the Provisional movement but like the Provisionals were formed following a split with the Republican Movement. We are a movement in our own right. We are not committed to organised crime nor to achieving a united Ireland by any means. This kind of rubbish shows how little the IMC know or understand about our movement about republicanism or about socialism.







Speech at Patsy O’Hara Commemoration
[Delivered by John Nixon, a young Irish Republican Socialist Party member from Derry.]
Friends and Comrades,

It is a privilege and an honour to be asked to speak here today on behalf of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement at this, the 24th anniversary commemoration of the death of INLA Volunteer and hunger strike martyr Patsy O’Hara.
I wasn’t even born 24 years ago when Patsy and his nine comrades embarked upon a fast to the death in their unified and dignified protest against the failed British attempt to criminalise the republican struggle. Their strength was their youth, their determination, their unity and of course the fact that they were fighting for what was right. That is why they prevailed in the end but as we know that struggle cost us dearly. Our ten comrades died within Long Kesh and during the same period others fell in action on the outside, equally courageous and equally determined to rid our nation of the imperialist aggressor. 1981 is a year that republicans in Ireland will never forget because we lost the best people that the struggle had produced. When I ask comrades of Patsy to describe him I hear stories of courage and of generosity. I hear of a soldier of the working class who never shirked his responsibilities to his community. I hear of a political activist who served on the national leadership of the IRSP whilst on the run. A true hero of Ireland’s working class.
At just twenty three years old Patsy had his full life in front of him. He, in his short life, had seen so much that moulded him into the person that he became. He had experienced the oppression and when just a teenager had taken part in the uprising along with the people of this city against the unjust British occupation of Ireland.
The young people of Derry and even of Ireland have a lot to learn from the example of Patsy O’Hara. In today’s society of greed where joyriding, drug abuse and anti-community behaviour is becoming rampant people should look towards the likes of Patsy for inspiration.
This is a society in which working class areas are being flooded with dangerous drugs such as ecstasy, cocaine and heroin. Joyriding and burglaries are increasing and the PSNI sit back and allow these people to operate openly with sanction, not that we ever expected anything different from them. Is it any wonder, with the backing of the PSNI, that some of our young people are turning their backs on their communities? We see by the current situation around the Creggan estate what damage these drugs and their dealers can do to the cohesion of communities. Only by embracing the revolutionary ideals of Patsy O’Hara can working class youth realise their collective potential. We say to the young people of this city: “Follow Patsy’s example and fight for your people. Join the Irish Republican Socialist Movement and play a positive role within your communities. Be part of the Irish Revolution!”
Patsy O’Hara by his ideas and his actions is the ultimate role model for the youth of Ireland today. Patsy was not deflected from the revolutionary path by the hollow heroes of the day. When I read about Patsy O’Hara I am reading about a person who was a militant, he was politicised and he was dedicated to the struggle to remove the British occupation forces from Ireland. He was a revolutionary who did not tire of standing up for what is right. Patsy was the Irish equivalent to Che Guevara. A young man who spent his life fighting for freedom and justice.
I could not speak today by not bringing to your attention a struggle of immense importance that is currently taking place at the Eastern borders of Europe. Just last week in Turkey a twelfth wave of death fasters has taken the place of those who have died before them in their struggle against the same type of vindictive and oppressive regime that our comrades in 1981 had to face down. We send our solidarity to our brothers and sisters in Turkey who are embroiled in the most serious of situations and who are facing that situation heroically. We admire their resolve to defeat the fascist regime in Turkey as any victory for the working class abroad is a victory for us here in Ireland also. The campaign in Turkey’s prisons and working class areas has been going on since October 2000. Their slogan “Victory or Death” sums up their resolve and determination in defeating Turkey’s vindictive regime and, comrades, I urge all of you to help bring this massacre to an end by getting involved in renewed campaigns in support of the Turkish prisoners.
So far 118 prisoners and their relatives on the outside have died during their continued protest. Four years ago, just before she died, one of those martyrs, Arzu Guler, sent the following message to the people of Derry: “Our Death Fast attack against the F-types is not only for the Turkish people, it is for all the world. We cannot separate our struggle from the world’s. We know about the struggles of Patsy O’Hara and Michael Devine and we support their cause. We greet you from the depths of our hearts.”
Go raibh maith agat.

Letters.
Aiden Hulme - a further miscarriage of justice victim!
Press release - Irish Political Status Committee.

Aidan Hulme is a 27 year old Miscarriage of Justice victim.
He is serving 22 years imprisonment in Full Sutton Prison, England for a crime he is not guilty of. Recently he and Noel Maguire lost their appeals against conviction and both are currently awaiting repatriation/transfers to prisons in Ireland. Prior to his arrest and wrongful conviction, his arrest and detention in Belmarsh Prison London, his condition has worsened and for the past 4 years he has suffered great pain - and medical neglect - at the hands of the Belmarsh Prison authorities and medical staff. He is presently incarcerated in HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire. In a letter to us yesterday Aiden outlines his current medical condition - and appeals for help. He tells his his pain-killing medication is being reduced - with the intention of withdrawing it altogether, with no other medication being offered in it's place. The prison doctor at Full Sutton insists the pain is psychological - in his head - yet 3 years ago the doctors at Belmarsh Prison told him he should consider having his injured leg amputated as it was beyond surgery. The Irish Political Status Committee have now taken his case to the Irish commission for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO) - who are raising it with the appropriate officials at the Irish Embassy - and to an Irish civil Rights Group in the north of Ireland.We are asking concerned organisations and individuals to raise Aiden's case with TD's,MP's etc - and with the British Home Office in London, British embassies in USA and EU -and as Aiden is an Irish citizen - to write to ambasaid na h-Eireann (Irish Embassy) in London demanding their intervention. Home Office address -
Home Secretary Charles Clarke MP
Home Office
50 Queen Ann's Gate
London SW1H-9AT.

Ambasaid na h-Eireann (Irish Embassy)
17 Grosvenor Place
London. W1V-6DD

Write to Aiden at
HMP Full Sutton

WHAT’S ON

Every Wednesday 1pm to 2 pm
Lunch time political discussion on the issues of the day in 392 Falls Road Belfast –Telephone 028-9032-1024.
Next Wednesday –Venezuela.
Comrades and friends welcome.




IPSc match to Israeli Embassy on Saturday June 4th

The IPSC is organising a number of activities in Dublin next Sat 4th June to coincide with the match between Ireland and Israel. Activities include a pageant with bulldozer at St Stephens Geen at 2.0pm, a rally at 3.00pm at Trinity College, and a march to the Israeli Embassy. The IPSC in Belfast is organising a bus to Dublin leaving Belfast at 10.30am and returning that night cost £8.00. There are only a small number of seats left. For more information contact Aine on 07980469730. This match will be used by the Sharon regime to attempt to portray itself as acceptable in the West.
Meanwhile Palestinians continue to be arrested, killed, prevented from attending college/school,play in international sports competitions, have their homes demolished, their crops destroyed and live under a despicable regime which Archbishop Tutu has described as much worse than that under which Blacks suffered in Apartheid South Africa.

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For those not going to Dublin the Make Poverty History campiagn is organising a rally in Belfast 2pm - Saturday - June 4th. Customs House Square,
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poets against poverty & war

Featuring: Martin Moony, Moyra Donaldson, Mark Madden, Deborah Madden and Brian Bailey
4pm - 6PM SATURDAY 4TH JUNE
(After Make Poverty History rally)
John Hewitt Bar ˆ Donegal Street
Fundraiser (donations welcome) for G8 Mobilisation buses to G8 protests
Supported by Belfast Poets ˆ www.belfastpoets.com
For Info call 07742 531 617

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION
AGAINST RACISM
Let us stay! Let us work!
JUSTICE FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS
Saturday 18 June, 12.30 pm
GPO, O’Connell Street, Dublin
Organised by RESIDENTS AGAINST RACISM
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST RACISM

Michael McDowell’s deportation machine has got worse than ever in recent months. He has sent his snatch squads into schools, attempting to drag children away from their classmates and teachers. He has separated mothers from their children. He has torn people away from communities they are now a part of, ignoring calls for compassion from their friends and neighbours.Asylum seekers in Ireland are forced to live on only •19.10 a week. They are banned from working or studying. People who are ready, willing and able to work are condemned by the government to compulsory unemployment and poverty.
His ideological obsession with deporting people makes Michael McDowell unfit to be in charge of the asylum system. The system should be taken out of the hands of politicians altogether, and run by a body˜such as the Human Rights Commission˜committed to fair play for asylum seekers.
Exploitation of immigrant workers is widespread in Ireland, based largely on the current work permit system. The permit is given to the employer, not the worker, which ties you to a single company with no right to change jobs. If the boss doesn’t renew your permit, you have no legal right to stay in Ireland.Recently, popular protest forced McDowell to do a U-turn, and reverse the deportation of Kunle Elukanlo, a school student from Dublin. In the run-up to World Refugee Day, 18 June is a chance to show that not everyone is prepared to stand by and allow state racism to continue.
 Stop the deportations
 Give asylum seekers the right to work
 Take the asylum system out of the politicians’ hands
 Take the work permits away from the employer

Residents Against Racism was set up in 1998 to fight against state racism, and to oppose all manifestations of racism. We have successfully campaigned in support of refugees facing deportation and other forms of harassment from the state. Our supporters include Joe Costello TD, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, Joe Higgins TD, Ciarán Cuffe TD, Finian McGrath TD, Michael O’Reilly of the ATGWU, and many other individuals and groups. We are not connected to any political party, and do not receive any state funding.
Contact details on website
http://www.residentsagainstracism.org


Camp Havana Glencolmcille 2005-05-25

From Friday 16th to Sunday 18th September 2005 over 100 men, women and children from every corner of this island – and indeed from much further away – will gather in Glencolmcille / Donegal. They will come in busses, by car, bicycle or on foot.
They will erect CAMP HAVANA and walk to the top of Slieve League.
Some will take the challenging hike across the whole ridge, accompanied by a trained mountain guide. Some will use a more relaxed walking route and some will only go as far as the bus can take them. All of them will enjoy Europe’s highest sea – cliffs which are surrounded by scenery incomparable to anywhere else on this earth.
Of course we are not just gathering to admire spectacular scenery. We will get together in what is going to be the biggest show of friendship with people from another island, Cuba, ever to happen on these shores.
We are making this effort mainly because five young men are serving lengthy prison sentences in the USA, guilty of nothing but the attempt to stop terrorism; murderous and destructive acts which have killed over 3.500 civilians in Cuba – more than the troubles in Northern Ireland.
These men went to Miami to try and stop the people who orchestrate this terrorism and ended up in US prisons. They have spent months in isolation cells, their wives, kids and relations have been denied visits.

The Miami 5 are victims of one of the most brutal human rights violations in recent history, victims of breaches of both international – and US law.
We want freedom for these innocent men!
With our sponsored mountain walk and the large meeting / concert on the evening of Saturday September 17th we will achieve;
Massive publicity and increased awareness about the case.
Pressure on political representatives (TDs, MPs, MEPs…) to act as opposed to talk.
Raising of much needed financial support for the campaign and for another urgent aid project in Cuba
Pushing forward the world – wide campaign to free the Miami 5 and strengthen the links between campaigners from various countries (At this very early stage we already know that there will be people from England, the USA, Austria, Germany and Denmark coming to show their support).

We can and we will free the Miami 5!
Nobody in this world is going to do it for us!
Lend us your support!
Join Camp Havana Glencolmcille 2005!
Get in touch with us now!

On behalf of the organisers of Camp Havana
Yours fraternally
Hermann Glaser – Baur

Phone us at: 028 77742655 (from Republic of Ireland: 04877742655)
E – mail: yohoocamphavanaglen@yahoo.ie