Ira Bombings a Disastrous Tactic

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Rialism.

We defend the right of these anti-imperialist fighters to use tactics, including armed struggle, in the war against national oppression, and stand at all times fully in their support against the witch-hunting of the capitalist media and the repression of the capitalist state.

But this by no means implies that we support any and every tactic they do in fact adopt.

And precisely because we support the struggle for Irish liberation, we. declare our complete opposition to the recent wave of terror bombings carried out in Britain by the IRA, and the continuation of bombings against civilian targets in the occupied six counties of Such tactics do nothing to harm British imperialism or to mobilise the working class in either Ireland or Britain against the barbarism of the British army or its bloodthirsty servants in the RUC, the UDR, the concentration camps and torture cells.

Backlash

By injuring the civilian population in militarily useless actions, they merely assist the capitalist media to whip up a reactionary backlash, helping them to regain waning support for the army repression of the republican and socialist movement in the occupied six counties.

The Republican argument in favour of the bombings demonstrates more clearly than anything else the failure of their leadership to grasp the importance of mobilising the British working class in the struggle against British imperialism:

"Whether the enemy likes it or not, international attention is being focussed on the British occupation of Ireland and hopefully this extension of the struggle will provoke debate on Ireland by the working class of the colonial power."

(Republican News, Dec. 23)

Certainly the bombingsnone of which has even attempted to hit any of the culprits responsible for repression in Ireland-will "provoke debate" inside the British workers' movement.

But it will be a "debate" in which as on previous occasions the defenders of the Irish liberation struggle will be driven increasingly onto the defensive as hostility grows towards terror bombings of civilian targets.

Confusion

The IRA statement fails completely to grasp the fact that the British working class is also at the receiving end of the These are the common enemy of the British and the Irish workers' movement. A united fight is essential if they are to be defeated.

But the IRA has no concept of such international unity. Instead it openly proclaims its readiness to make British workers pay with their lives for the barbarism of their own ruling class:

"any acts of brutality against defenceless prisoners of war would inevitably force us into considering inflicting heavy civilian casualties."

Irony

Such a futile, destructive strategy stands as a major threat to the trish liberation struggle. It must be resolutely opposed The irony is that this turn takes place at a time when sections of the British labour movement have begun to show more sympathy to the Irish struggle and particularly the 'H' Block issue.

Demonstrations called during 1978 by the Prisoners Aid Committee were the biggest on Ireland for several years. The use of the army against the labour movement in Britain itself is also raising workers' awareness of its real role in support of capital.

The real character of the sectarian set-up in the six counties is being further revealed for all to see by the arrest of five RUC men charged with murdering Catholics.

And there are now growing pressures within the international workers' movementparticularly in the powerful US labour movement-for solidarity action in suport of the Irish POWS.

Under these conditions the task for British socialists is to step up the fight within the trade unions and the Labour Party for action to force the immediate withdrawal of all British troops from Ireland.

But the bombing campaign, by diverting from the real source of terrorism and violence-the criminal role of the Labour leaders in furthering the repression of the Irish peopleoffers the Callaghan-Mason clique and their Tory press admirers a ready weapon against such a fight.

Motive There is no doubt that the motive force behind the historic war of Irish liberation is the military occupation of the Northern six counties of Ireland by the organised terror force of British imperialism.

In the spurious name of preserving "peace" and "stability" the British army, with its enthusiastic retinue of RUC, UDR and prison screws, daily carries out systematised harrassment, beatings, shootMason ings, torture, jailings and wholesale intimidation of the Irish people.

By blocking the struggle for national liberation in the six counties, British imperialism hopes to prevent the unification of the Irish working class in its common struggle against unemployment, poverty and extremes of capitalist exploitation both North and South and thus prevent the creation of an Irish workers republic.

But the IRA's latest tactics have demonstrated that it is not wish the Labour leaders who oniy class from the Irish struggle.

Spectator

Both in Britain and in Ireland the IRA's own approach relegates the working class to the role of passive spectatoror even possible victim-of the clandestine activities of an elite, and heads off once again down the same old blind alley of So all the world's doctors and all the world's medical technology could not bring Houari Boumedienne to life again.

The attendants round his sickbed were like a living epitaph for the Algerian revolution.

First, the Soviet physicians were brought in to cure the illness of the Algerian President; then the trips to Russia where it became clear that they could do no more than ease the pains of his mortal sickness.

With Boumedienne's return to Algiers, it was the French advisers who flocked to cushion individual terrorism.

The bombings have shown that the republican movement has not been subdued by army repression, arrests, tortures or SAS murders.

But unless a turn is made in Ireland to political agitation designed to mobilise the working class around demands to fight the mass unemployment, low wages and slum housing which flow from British imperialist rule in the six counties, there is still no evidence that-for all the courage and devotion of its fighters-the IRA has any serious strategy for the defeat British imperialism.

Obligation A Trotskyist party equipped with such a programme for action must be built in Ireland.

This, however, in no way lessens the obligation of the British working class to take up, through every available avenue in the labour movement, the fight to force the removal of the Callaghan-Mason leadership, the restoration of PoW status to political prisoners and the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland.

Any Algerian leaders who had a real desire to fight for socialism and to extend the struggle against imperialism, completely lacked any programme to carry those wishes into practicę.

The real direction of the bureaucracy was revealed in 1965 when Boumedienne, previously head of the armed forces, came to power in a coup.

Only weeks later major agreements were signed with the French government for the exploitation of Algeria's vast minerai wealth.

But the open return of Algeria to the welcoming capitalist fold did not stop there.

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