Rory O'Connor
02-09-2008, 01:35 PM
I read the following articles on the 32 County Sovereignty Movement's previous official website.
ISOLATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IS A DELIBERATE ABUSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The term political prisoner accurately reflects the reason many prisoners find themselves incarcerated in gaol because they have stood up to the might of the invader to uphold the rights of their people and to uphold the sovereignty of their nation.
The term terrorist is used by the invader/superpower to derogate the individual and the organisation that he/she belongs, to prevent support at national and international levels.
The reality is that such political prisoners are freedom fighters and are in gaol for political reasons and are entitled to defend their nation and their sovereignty.
To expand on this subject in an Irish context the 32 County Sovereignty Movement were formed in opposition to former comrades who failed to protect Irish National Sovereignty in negotiations which led to another internal partitionist agreement which allows the British Government to hold on to their illegal sovereign claim to the occupied six counties.
The volunteers of the IRA split on this issue and are continuing their campaign to protect and uphold Irish sovereignty, which has been established by the Irish people in 1918 and has been denied by successive British governments. The Irish people have continuously been denied their fundamental right to national self-determination.
As a result of Irish men and women standing up to the might of the foreign invader
i.e. The British Army of occupation and their political masters in government, many find themselves incarcerated in gaol for defending their fundamental right against imposed British rule with the daily use of and threat of force.
This has been an ongoing situation in Ireland since the British government refused to recognise the democratic right of the people and forced partition through the threat of “immediate and terrible war”.
Throughout that history republican prisoners have suffered the most torturous regimes in attempts to break their spirit and their will to defend their nation and oppose all that is wrong with British rule in Ireland. The attempts to isolate republican POW’s {Prisoners of War} have failed and continue to fail because of the resilience these men and women display.
The most recognised fight for the rights of POW’s happened in 1981 when the situation became so unbearable when the then British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher intensified the criminalisation of republicans.
She failed, the prisoners refused to be broken or categorised as criminal. They refused to wear convicts uniform in the first instance. The protests intensified within the gaols resulting in what became known as the “Dirty Protest” while simultaneously street protests intensified in support of the POW’s.
Despite world opinion the British government refused to move on this issue in their attempt to isolate and criminalize republicans and the more they inflicted on the prisoners the more resilient these men and women stood in defiance of the oppressor.
They stood firm for their right to be recognised as political prisoners.
They eventually embarked on their last option, hunger strike and the British government allowed ten brave men to die for their rights before political status was granted.
In 1998 with the signing of the illegal Good Friday Agreement the British government reverted under the agreement to criminalize anyone who disagreed with the continuance of British rule in Ireland.
Draconian and unjust laws, secures false sentencing of political activists to gaol because the British government still use special courts to hear such cases. There is no jury. British judges usually find the suspect guilty on the flimsiest of unsubstantiated evidence. Indeed over the past few months it has been established that in cases were forensic evidence was submitted in these farcical court hearings, the evidence has been tampered with to secure conviction. Senior police officers have used their influence at what was supposed to be, an independent laboratory, to have contaminated items prove positive to secure the conviction of innocent people.
Political status was removed and republican POW’s were forced to integrate with loyalist murderers and common criminals. There was a great sense of betrayal with those who signed such an agreement particularly with Sinn Fein who agreed to all of this in negotiations. The republican leaders Adams and Mc Guinness et al had fallen for the British trick of divide and conquer. The movement was split between those who moved from the republican position of defending the right of the Irish people to national self determination and protecting and upholding Irish National Sovereignty and those who made the choice to accept British rule with a devolved British Assembly and actively take part in administering British rule in Ireland.
The enticement of limited power and greed witness’s Sinn Fein administering British rule in the occupied part of Ireland. No one could have believed such a scenario.
However the attempts to isolate and criminalize republican POW’s again failed. The POW’s, their families and the people again secured segregation whereby prisoners have a right to a wing of their own with free association.
This was not secured without a fight and the volunteers of the IRA again embarked on protest beginning with a no wash protest and on to hunger strike. On the outside, street protest began to gain momentum and despite attempts by the British government and their press to have a media black out on what was happening republicans again ensured that their message was getting out to the people.
Those who betrayed the sovereignty of the Irish nation began to realise that such a protest was gaining support and that their position was now untenable. The British Government knew also that their position could not be sustained and given the failure of the Good Friday Agreement to address the core cause of conflict they were forced to back down from their criminalisation and isolation policy.
This isolation policy is not unique to Ireland it is the policy of the superpowers like America to criminalize those who disagree with their colonial mentality.
Across the world whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, The Basque region or Ireland, to name but a few countries that have had their sovereignty denied, political prisoners are isolated with propaganda criminalizing them as terrorists.
The real terrorists are those who have invaded and taken over countries against the democratic wishes of their people.
Given the attempts by colonial powers to isolate and criminalize peoples for protecting and defending their sovereignty and their right to national self determination, free from external impediment, it is incumbent on all of us at an international level to unite on this issue, to expose the hypocrisy of the oppressor and to build campaigns which will assist in highlighting such injustices across the world.
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement in upholding Irish National Sovereignty, lodged a challenge to the British Government at the United Nations in America. The legality of British rule under international law is now part of our overall challenge.
Some may question why take this route. The 32 CSM believe the United Nations are the only recognised international body set up to protect the rights of small nations.
We cannot be held responsible for its failings or the interference of its work by American influence. What we can do is to continue to highlight through the Human Rights Commission in Geneva the failure of the UN to address the injustices and human rights abuses which undoubtedly arise from invasion and the denial of the national people’s right to determine their future free from outside interference.
Since the 32 County Sovereignty Movement lodged the challenge at the UN our members have been barred from entering America and our movement has been banned. This reaction demonstrates the strength of our position when such extreme measures are introduced. However, that will not deter Irish men and women from upholding the democratic rights of our people and we lodged a submission at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Indeed through cooperation with other Non-Government Organisations {NGO’s} the 32 CCSM secured speaking rights at the commission.
Since the movement was banned in America it is now more difficult to gain access to the Human Rights commission and as part of the overall strategy at an international level the 32 CSM advocates greater cooperation at an international level to secure attendance and speaking rights at the UN. We all need to get NGO’s to undertake the plight of political prisoners and to get the reasons why POW’s exist addressed by the UN. There is an urgent need to have all the injustices across the world highlighted and to put in place the proper infrastructure to ensure that these issues are adequately addressed to bring an end to the sufferings and injustice of invasion by colonial powers.
From an Irish perspective the 32 CSM will continue to uphold the rights of the Irish people to protect their sovereignty and will continue to pursue the rights of our people to national self- determination free from British interference.
The Irish people long to end British rule but are continuously denied that right.
Together, at an international level, we can all secure the rights of our people and to secure the release of all political prisoners must be foremost in our minds.
THE PROBLEMS OF SECTARIANISM, SOVEREIGNTY AND SECTARIANISM
The problem of sectarianism must be addressed in terms of what it really is. Without going into the long-term history of Sectarianism, we can reasonably assume the current bout of the problem to have existed; in it’s current form, since the Civil Rights Agitation of the late 1960’s. In response to the perceived threat to the Sectarian unionist state the Unionist government (and by association the British government) initiated a whole ream of repressive legislation and actions against the fledgling Civil Rights Association.
In it’s obsession with socialist, communist and republican conspiracies and plots it could be said that the Government of Northern Ireland gave birth to a new genre of sectarianism, the Provisional Republican Movement, UDA and a revitalised UVF.
The actions of the NI and the British Governments in resisting what were fairly tame social demands led many to re-evaluate their views on the real intentions of Britain in Ireland and many asked what Britain could hope to achieve or protect by fomenting sectarian tensions. The conclusion reached by the Republican Movement was that Sectarianism was a symptom, British rule the cause. This is still basically the position of the Republican movement. Whilst other so called Republicans have clamoured to administer British rule in Ireland, the 32csm will always see it as the root cause of all the sectarian problems in the north of Ireland. The state of Northern Ireland cannot be reformed; in other words "a silk purse cannot be made out of a sow’s ear".
The usurpation of Ireland as a Sovereign Nation in 1921 had a disastrous effect both north and south. The creation of the illegal states of Northern Ireland and soarstat eireann led to sectarianism being institutionalised. The fact that the Irish Free State had no real Republican representation led to the creation of an almost exclusively Catholic state, despite a few token Protestant TD’S. The special place of the Catholic Church was hence formally adopted into the constitution in 1937. The existence of two such states did little to reassure people of either religion (or indeed of none) caught on the " wrong" side of the border. The arbitrary partition of a sovereign nation was supposed to eliminate sectarian problems, instead it exacerbated them.
Whilst the Sectarianism of the British administration, judiciary and security services was conscious and intentional, the Sectarianism of the Protestant working class and loyalism was much more ill informed based as it was on false assumptions, misinformation and threats of imagined conspiracy. The working class was used to maintain a privilege for others and suffered the backlash without even realising who or what they were protecting. The Protestant working class was told to vote for the unionist party despite it being a middle class party with no real regard for the workers, and the bogeyman of a united Ireland kept people voting along these lines. If they felt like lamenting their social and economical position they were reminded that it could be worse…they could be Catholic.
Those who believe that the British Government’s interference in Northern Ireland is only to keep the two sides apart need only remember that it was the same institution that fed and bred Sectarianism for its own ends. The record of successive British Governments with regards to being impartial is abysmal. Collusion is just one example of this. The fact that the British security establishment armed loyalist death squads with weapons and intelligence to terrorise the catholic population into accepting British rule is a matter of record. Another objective of this policy and the deployment of the SAS, shoot to kill etc was to force Sinn Fein into so-called peace talks. This was also successful.
The proposed solution to Northern Ireland’s ills did and will continue to do little to achieve its proclaimed objective, entrenching sectarian attitudes through such things as sectarian voting patterns. The need to identify oneself as either green or orange is patently divisive and does little to combat sectarianism. The Catholic working class has also become noticeably more sectarian since it’s so called leaders have adopted the agreement. The agreement has forced Sinn Fein to jettison its republicanism in favour of a nationalistic, territorial scramble for more and more votes. Real Republicanism is all-inclusive and values all citizens equally, not just those who vote for their agenda. The 32csm will not stoop to the anti protestant, ultra-nationalist, mentality that seems to have become endemic in Catholic working class areas in recent years.
Sectarianism is a working class problem; it does not exist to any great extent in more affluent areas, because it is not required there. In order to eliminate the scourge of Sectarianism it is vital to have a real understanding of its nature, uses and real character. Campaigns to stop Sectarian songs at football matches and anti-sectarian legislation at work go some way to obscuring the problem but do little to solve it.
Neither will arming community workers (many of them sectarian themselves) with mobile phones to ring their counterparts on the other side solve it, this merely allows sectarian community violence to be turned on and off when expedient to one side or the other. The position of the 32csm movement on Sectarianism is clear. States built on sectarianism cannot reform. Any attempt to combat the problem is in essence contrary to the nature on which the Six County State was built.
We believe that the spirit of the proclamation in 1916 as ratified by the people in 1918, that came into being in 1919 and was usurped in 1921 has all the ingredients for a successful resolution of all Ireland’s constitutional problems. We believe that Britain cares as little for the Protestant working class as the current Irish State does for the Catholic working class. The working class all over Ireland need to throw off their respective Governments and start working on what unites as opposed to what divides.
This will not just contain Sectarianism but will eliminate it.
THIS SHOULD LEAVE NO ONE IN ANY DOUBT
THE SUSPENTION OF STORMONT…a suspension of democracy?
Yet again the British government have suspended the Stormont executive. Yet another Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has pulled the plug making a mockery of the term "power sharing". This should leave no one in any doubt as to who exactly wields power in the six counties. The claptrap about more "accountable government" does however hold some water; Nationalist and Republicans are increasingly more accountable to the British government and the whims of the Ulster Unionists. The Irish Government despite their supposedly crucial role in the process have had to stand by and watch as Britain, in an effort to wring even more concessions out of Sinn Fein, pander to reactionary elements within Unionism and the British security establishment. Let’s be quite clear about this, Stormont has not, cannot and will never offer anything to republicans other than a small share in administering British rule (if we play ball.) It is ludicrous to suggest, as Conor Murphy has done, that the Republican movement entered Stormont in order to wreck it by forcing their own agenda. The comparison with Republican prisoners in the early 1980’s engaging in prison work to execute the mass breakout of 1983 is as misleading as it is disingenuous.
The Republican prisoners did not jump through hoops to legitimise the prison system, as current republican politicians are doing with the political system, but rather they suspended a point of principle to destroy the system. Every so called crisis in the peace process is blamed on Republicans and so in order to rectify it and maintain the current system a further concession must be made. Let’s not pretend that Sinn Fein have an Ace card to play. The only thing they had up their sleeves were their arms, which have since been decommissioned. The next concession will undoubtedly be SF taking their place on the Policing board; of-course Special Branch will be slightly rearranged in order for them to be able to sell it to their supporters. The current crisis has also brought the issue of IRA disbandment into the public arena. This is a method by which to gauge public opinion. While the IRA categorically state that they have no intention of disbanding Gerry Adams is saying he can see a future without them. Under what circumstances can he envisage this occurring? Full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement? Mr Adams has already stated that the Irish army and the Garda siochanna are legitimate! This then would mean that the IRA is illegitimate. If this is the case then their disbandment would come as no surprise if it would help SF’s agenda Re: the Agreement. Real Republicans believe that the IRA are the legitimate army of the Irish Republic and as such will never cease to exist. There is no doubt that the Stormont Executive will be revived,
Republicans should consider what they are being asked to surrender for the privilege of serving in a British Parliament.
80 YEARS UNDER ATTACK, WHO STILL STANDS BY THE REPUBLIC?
2003 sees the eightieth anniversary of the end of the civil war, the suspension of democracy and the driving underground of the all Ireland republic.
For eighty years we have been sold the lie that the partition and continued occupation of our country was the result of a process, which England brazenly calls 'democracy'.
Most Irish Republicans understand and agree that the 1921 treaty was signed and accepted for no other reason than Lloyd George's threat of "immediate and terrible war" upon this country. They also understand how the actions of a threatened and terrified populace in 1921 cannot be portrayed as the 'democratic wishes of the people'.
Most Republicans realise that Britain's insistence on partition and a Unionist veto on Irish unity was the ultimate affront to the very principle of Irish democracy and national Sovereignty. Unfortunately, what many republicans and nationalists fail to grasp is that just as the treaty of 1921 represented an attack on the principle of Irish Sovereignty so too does the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
For decades Provisional Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA unflinchingly and heroically defended the Sovereignty principle as a line in the sand. With the Good Friday Agreement they moved away from
that position and in doing so strayed from the path of true republicanism.
We are now in a bizarre position where the public/political faces of Irish republicanism are (in their own words) "administering British rule in Ireland" and agreeing to barter with the internationally and legally recogised principle of Irish Sovereignty.
Through signing and promoting the GFA the Provisionals have not only cancelled out the very sacrifice which was made by all those who gave their lives for Irish freedom in the past, they have also rendered any future fight for Irish independence 'illegal'. Still we are told that it is only a stopgap on the road to Irish unity.
It was Britain's refusal to recognise Irish Sovereignty that made partition and the very existence of 'Northern Ireland' possible.
The price of partition was civil war, continued occupation, sectarian oppression, conflict and death - all
of which could have been avoided by Britain's recognition of Ireland as a sovereign nation.
The only solution for Republicans then was to end Britain's ability to deny Irish sovereignty.
Amazingly the Provisionals through accepting the GFA have accepted Britain's right to obstruct the principle of sovereignty and as such have accepted the Unionist veto.
How this is a first step on the road to Irish freedom God only knows. But one thing is for sure.....now is the time to build the republican alternative.
ISOLATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IS A DELIBERATE ABUSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The term political prisoner accurately reflects the reason many prisoners find themselves incarcerated in gaol because they have stood up to the might of the invader to uphold the rights of their people and to uphold the sovereignty of their nation.
The term terrorist is used by the invader/superpower to derogate the individual and the organisation that he/she belongs, to prevent support at national and international levels.
The reality is that such political prisoners are freedom fighters and are in gaol for political reasons and are entitled to defend their nation and their sovereignty.
To expand on this subject in an Irish context the 32 County Sovereignty Movement were formed in opposition to former comrades who failed to protect Irish National Sovereignty in negotiations which led to another internal partitionist agreement which allows the British Government to hold on to their illegal sovereign claim to the occupied six counties.
The volunteers of the IRA split on this issue and are continuing their campaign to protect and uphold Irish sovereignty, which has been established by the Irish people in 1918 and has been denied by successive British governments. The Irish people have continuously been denied their fundamental right to national self-determination.
As a result of Irish men and women standing up to the might of the foreign invader
i.e. The British Army of occupation and their political masters in government, many find themselves incarcerated in gaol for defending their fundamental right against imposed British rule with the daily use of and threat of force.
This has been an ongoing situation in Ireland since the British government refused to recognise the democratic right of the people and forced partition through the threat of “immediate and terrible war”.
Throughout that history republican prisoners have suffered the most torturous regimes in attempts to break their spirit and their will to defend their nation and oppose all that is wrong with British rule in Ireland. The attempts to isolate republican POW’s {Prisoners of War} have failed and continue to fail because of the resilience these men and women display.
The most recognised fight for the rights of POW’s happened in 1981 when the situation became so unbearable when the then British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher intensified the criminalisation of republicans.
She failed, the prisoners refused to be broken or categorised as criminal. They refused to wear convicts uniform in the first instance. The protests intensified within the gaols resulting in what became known as the “Dirty Protest” while simultaneously street protests intensified in support of the POW’s.
Despite world opinion the British government refused to move on this issue in their attempt to isolate and criminalize republicans and the more they inflicted on the prisoners the more resilient these men and women stood in defiance of the oppressor.
They stood firm for their right to be recognised as political prisoners.
They eventually embarked on their last option, hunger strike and the British government allowed ten brave men to die for their rights before political status was granted.
In 1998 with the signing of the illegal Good Friday Agreement the British government reverted under the agreement to criminalize anyone who disagreed with the continuance of British rule in Ireland.
Draconian and unjust laws, secures false sentencing of political activists to gaol because the British government still use special courts to hear such cases. There is no jury. British judges usually find the suspect guilty on the flimsiest of unsubstantiated evidence. Indeed over the past few months it has been established that in cases were forensic evidence was submitted in these farcical court hearings, the evidence has been tampered with to secure conviction. Senior police officers have used their influence at what was supposed to be, an independent laboratory, to have contaminated items prove positive to secure the conviction of innocent people.
Political status was removed and republican POW’s were forced to integrate with loyalist murderers and common criminals. There was a great sense of betrayal with those who signed such an agreement particularly with Sinn Fein who agreed to all of this in negotiations. The republican leaders Adams and Mc Guinness et al had fallen for the British trick of divide and conquer. The movement was split between those who moved from the republican position of defending the right of the Irish people to national self determination and protecting and upholding Irish National Sovereignty and those who made the choice to accept British rule with a devolved British Assembly and actively take part in administering British rule in Ireland.
The enticement of limited power and greed witness’s Sinn Fein administering British rule in the occupied part of Ireland. No one could have believed such a scenario.
However the attempts to isolate and criminalize republican POW’s again failed. The POW’s, their families and the people again secured segregation whereby prisoners have a right to a wing of their own with free association.
This was not secured without a fight and the volunteers of the IRA again embarked on protest beginning with a no wash protest and on to hunger strike. On the outside, street protest began to gain momentum and despite attempts by the British government and their press to have a media black out on what was happening republicans again ensured that their message was getting out to the people.
Those who betrayed the sovereignty of the Irish nation began to realise that such a protest was gaining support and that their position was now untenable. The British Government knew also that their position could not be sustained and given the failure of the Good Friday Agreement to address the core cause of conflict they were forced to back down from their criminalisation and isolation policy.
This isolation policy is not unique to Ireland it is the policy of the superpowers like America to criminalize those who disagree with their colonial mentality.
Across the world whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir, The Basque region or Ireland, to name but a few countries that have had their sovereignty denied, political prisoners are isolated with propaganda criminalizing them as terrorists.
The real terrorists are those who have invaded and taken over countries against the democratic wishes of their people.
Given the attempts by colonial powers to isolate and criminalize peoples for protecting and defending their sovereignty and their right to national self determination, free from external impediment, it is incumbent on all of us at an international level to unite on this issue, to expose the hypocrisy of the oppressor and to build campaigns which will assist in highlighting such injustices across the world.
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement in upholding Irish National Sovereignty, lodged a challenge to the British Government at the United Nations in America. The legality of British rule under international law is now part of our overall challenge.
Some may question why take this route. The 32 CSM believe the United Nations are the only recognised international body set up to protect the rights of small nations.
We cannot be held responsible for its failings or the interference of its work by American influence. What we can do is to continue to highlight through the Human Rights Commission in Geneva the failure of the UN to address the injustices and human rights abuses which undoubtedly arise from invasion and the denial of the national people’s right to determine their future free from outside interference.
Since the 32 County Sovereignty Movement lodged the challenge at the UN our members have been barred from entering America and our movement has been banned. This reaction demonstrates the strength of our position when such extreme measures are introduced. However, that will not deter Irish men and women from upholding the democratic rights of our people and we lodged a submission at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Indeed through cooperation with other Non-Government Organisations {NGO’s} the 32 CCSM secured speaking rights at the commission.
Since the movement was banned in America it is now more difficult to gain access to the Human Rights commission and as part of the overall strategy at an international level the 32 CSM advocates greater cooperation at an international level to secure attendance and speaking rights at the UN. We all need to get NGO’s to undertake the plight of political prisoners and to get the reasons why POW’s exist addressed by the UN. There is an urgent need to have all the injustices across the world highlighted and to put in place the proper infrastructure to ensure that these issues are adequately addressed to bring an end to the sufferings and injustice of invasion by colonial powers.
From an Irish perspective the 32 CSM will continue to uphold the rights of the Irish people to protect their sovereignty and will continue to pursue the rights of our people to national self- determination free from British interference.
The Irish people long to end British rule but are continuously denied that right.
Together, at an international level, we can all secure the rights of our people and to secure the release of all political prisoners must be foremost in our minds.
THE PROBLEMS OF SECTARIANISM, SOVEREIGNTY AND SECTARIANISM
The problem of sectarianism must be addressed in terms of what it really is. Without going into the long-term history of Sectarianism, we can reasonably assume the current bout of the problem to have existed; in it’s current form, since the Civil Rights Agitation of the late 1960’s. In response to the perceived threat to the Sectarian unionist state the Unionist government (and by association the British government) initiated a whole ream of repressive legislation and actions against the fledgling Civil Rights Association.
In it’s obsession with socialist, communist and republican conspiracies and plots it could be said that the Government of Northern Ireland gave birth to a new genre of sectarianism, the Provisional Republican Movement, UDA and a revitalised UVF.
The actions of the NI and the British Governments in resisting what were fairly tame social demands led many to re-evaluate their views on the real intentions of Britain in Ireland and many asked what Britain could hope to achieve or protect by fomenting sectarian tensions. The conclusion reached by the Republican Movement was that Sectarianism was a symptom, British rule the cause. This is still basically the position of the Republican movement. Whilst other so called Republicans have clamoured to administer British rule in Ireland, the 32csm will always see it as the root cause of all the sectarian problems in the north of Ireland. The state of Northern Ireland cannot be reformed; in other words "a silk purse cannot be made out of a sow’s ear".
The usurpation of Ireland as a Sovereign Nation in 1921 had a disastrous effect both north and south. The creation of the illegal states of Northern Ireland and soarstat eireann led to sectarianism being institutionalised. The fact that the Irish Free State had no real Republican representation led to the creation of an almost exclusively Catholic state, despite a few token Protestant TD’S. The special place of the Catholic Church was hence formally adopted into the constitution in 1937. The existence of two such states did little to reassure people of either religion (or indeed of none) caught on the " wrong" side of the border. The arbitrary partition of a sovereign nation was supposed to eliminate sectarian problems, instead it exacerbated them.
Whilst the Sectarianism of the British administration, judiciary and security services was conscious and intentional, the Sectarianism of the Protestant working class and loyalism was much more ill informed based as it was on false assumptions, misinformation and threats of imagined conspiracy. The working class was used to maintain a privilege for others and suffered the backlash without even realising who or what they were protecting. The Protestant working class was told to vote for the unionist party despite it being a middle class party with no real regard for the workers, and the bogeyman of a united Ireland kept people voting along these lines. If they felt like lamenting their social and economical position they were reminded that it could be worse…they could be Catholic.
Those who believe that the British Government’s interference in Northern Ireland is only to keep the two sides apart need only remember that it was the same institution that fed and bred Sectarianism for its own ends. The record of successive British Governments with regards to being impartial is abysmal. Collusion is just one example of this. The fact that the British security establishment armed loyalist death squads with weapons and intelligence to terrorise the catholic population into accepting British rule is a matter of record. Another objective of this policy and the deployment of the SAS, shoot to kill etc was to force Sinn Fein into so-called peace talks. This was also successful.
The proposed solution to Northern Ireland’s ills did and will continue to do little to achieve its proclaimed objective, entrenching sectarian attitudes through such things as sectarian voting patterns. The need to identify oneself as either green or orange is patently divisive and does little to combat sectarianism. The Catholic working class has also become noticeably more sectarian since it’s so called leaders have adopted the agreement. The agreement has forced Sinn Fein to jettison its republicanism in favour of a nationalistic, territorial scramble for more and more votes. Real Republicanism is all-inclusive and values all citizens equally, not just those who vote for their agenda. The 32csm will not stoop to the anti protestant, ultra-nationalist, mentality that seems to have become endemic in Catholic working class areas in recent years.
Sectarianism is a working class problem; it does not exist to any great extent in more affluent areas, because it is not required there. In order to eliminate the scourge of Sectarianism it is vital to have a real understanding of its nature, uses and real character. Campaigns to stop Sectarian songs at football matches and anti-sectarian legislation at work go some way to obscuring the problem but do little to solve it.
Neither will arming community workers (many of them sectarian themselves) with mobile phones to ring their counterparts on the other side solve it, this merely allows sectarian community violence to be turned on and off when expedient to one side or the other. The position of the 32csm movement on Sectarianism is clear. States built on sectarianism cannot reform. Any attempt to combat the problem is in essence contrary to the nature on which the Six County State was built.
We believe that the spirit of the proclamation in 1916 as ratified by the people in 1918, that came into being in 1919 and was usurped in 1921 has all the ingredients for a successful resolution of all Ireland’s constitutional problems. We believe that Britain cares as little for the Protestant working class as the current Irish State does for the Catholic working class. The working class all over Ireland need to throw off their respective Governments and start working on what unites as opposed to what divides.
This will not just contain Sectarianism but will eliminate it.
THIS SHOULD LEAVE NO ONE IN ANY DOUBT
THE SUSPENTION OF STORMONT…a suspension of democracy?
Yet again the British government have suspended the Stormont executive. Yet another Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has pulled the plug making a mockery of the term "power sharing". This should leave no one in any doubt as to who exactly wields power in the six counties. The claptrap about more "accountable government" does however hold some water; Nationalist and Republicans are increasingly more accountable to the British government and the whims of the Ulster Unionists. The Irish Government despite their supposedly crucial role in the process have had to stand by and watch as Britain, in an effort to wring even more concessions out of Sinn Fein, pander to reactionary elements within Unionism and the British security establishment. Let’s be quite clear about this, Stormont has not, cannot and will never offer anything to republicans other than a small share in administering British rule (if we play ball.) It is ludicrous to suggest, as Conor Murphy has done, that the Republican movement entered Stormont in order to wreck it by forcing their own agenda. The comparison with Republican prisoners in the early 1980’s engaging in prison work to execute the mass breakout of 1983 is as misleading as it is disingenuous.
The Republican prisoners did not jump through hoops to legitimise the prison system, as current republican politicians are doing with the political system, but rather they suspended a point of principle to destroy the system. Every so called crisis in the peace process is blamed on Republicans and so in order to rectify it and maintain the current system a further concession must be made. Let’s not pretend that Sinn Fein have an Ace card to play. The only thing they had up their sleeves were their arms, which have since been decommissioned. The next concession will undoubtedly be SF taking their place on the Policing board; of-course Special Branch will be slightly rearranged in order for them to be able to sell it to their supporters. The current crisis has also brought the issue of IRA disbandment into the public arena. This is a method by which to gauge public opinion. While the IRA categorically state that they have no intention of disbanding Gerry Adams is saying he can see a future without them. Under what circumstances can he envisage this occurring? Full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement? Mr Adams has already stated that the Irish army and the Garda siochanna are legitimate! This then would mean that the IRA is illegitimate. If this is the case then their disbandment would come as no surprise if it would help SF’s agenda Re: the Agreement. Real Republicans believe that the IRA are the legitimate army of the Irish Republic and as such will never cease to exist. There is no doubt that the Stormont Executive will be revived,
Republicans should consider what they are being asked to surrender for the privilege of serving in a British Parliament.
80 YEARS UNDER ATTACK, WHO STILL STANDS BY THE REPUBLIC?
2003 sees the eightieth anniversary of the end of the civil war, the suspension of democracy and the driving underground of the all Ireland republic.
For eighty years we have been sold the lie that the partition and continued occupation of our country was the result of a process, which England brazenly calls 'democracy'.
Most Irish Republicans understand and agree that the 1921 treaty was signed and accepted for no other reason than Lloyd George's threat of "immediate and terrible war" upon this country. They also understand how the actions of a threatened and terrified populace in 1921 cannot be portrayed as the 'democratic wishes of the people'.
Most Republicans realise that Britain's insistence on partition and a Unionist veto on Irish unity was the ultimate affront to the very principle of Irish democracy and national Sovereignty. Unfortunately, what many republicans and nationalists fail to grasp is that just as the treaty of 1921 represented an attack on the principle of Irish Sovereignty so too does the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
For decades Provisional Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA unflinchingly and heroically defended the Sovereignty principle as a line in the sand. With the Good Friday Agreement they moved away from
that position and in doing so strayed from the path of true republicanism.
We are now in a bizarre position where the public/political faces of Irish republicanism are (in their own words) "administering British rule in Ireland" and agreeing to barter with the internationally and legally recogised principle of Irish Sovereignty.
Through signing and promoting the GFA the Provisionals have not only cancelled out the very sacrifice which was made by all those who gave their lives for Irish freedom in the past, they have also rendered any future fight for Irish independence 'illegal'. Still we are told that it is only a stopgap on the road to Irish unity.
It was Britain's refusal to recognise Irish Sovereignty that made partition and the very existence of 'Northern Ireland' possible.
The price of partition was civil war, continued occupation, sectarian oppression, conflict and death - all
of which could have been avoided by Britain's recognition of Ireland as a sovereign nation.
The only solution for Republicans then was to end Britain's ability to deny Irish sovereignty.
Amazingly the Provisionals through accepting the GFA have accepted Britain's right to obstruct the principle of sovereignty and as such have accepted the Unionist veto.
How this is a first step on the road to Irish freedom God only knows. But one thing is for sure.....now is the time to build the republican alternative.