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Scene on the Leicester anti-fascist march - DETAILS Page 5.

The bloodstained fist of Britain's military repression in the six counties of Ireland has become a major international embarrassment to US imperialism.

This is the obvious meaning of the growing attention being paid by US politicians to the Irish question, and the speculation that President Carter might be plotting another of his so-called "peace" initiatives.

The seemingly ignorant remarks of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, "Tip" O'Neill have been followed up by criticism from New York State Governor Hugh Carey of the way in which both Labour and Tory leaders have sought: compromises with the Ulster Unionists.

Common line.

Carey is much nearer the mark than O'Neill, whose claim that Ireland has become "a political football" between the two main parties was hastily challenged by Tory leader Thatcher and by Labour leaders alike, who stressed that both parties are absolutely agreed on the present policy of brutal military repression in the six counties.

To underscore the point still further Labour's vicious Minister for Torture Roy Mason-with full backing from the Tories-chose last week to announce a further battery of "security" measures in "the province" including an increase in the military occupation forces to over 13,000.

The nature of the naked military terror now prevailing in the North was demonstrated by the decision to take no action against the SAS undercover murder squad who, without even Embarassed - Carter issuing a challenge, riddled a Protestant hunter with bullets in the back in County Tyrone last year.

But despite every form of harassment, intimidation and brutality-be it SAS assassins; RUC beatings in the Castlereagh torture centre; or the barbaric treatment inflicted on republican prisoners, courageously demanding political status in the Long Kesh concentration camp-the resistance to British imperialism continues to grow.

Major demonstrations of solidarity with the republican struggle took place during Easter throughout the occupied six counties, in the midst of .a mounting IRA offensive against British military : forces, prison screws and the RUC.

The Easter speech by Derry Sinn Fein speaker Richard Behal pointed out the international context of this resurgence of anti-imperialist struggle:

"Can the RUC and their lackeys possibly forget the fate of the Shah's secret police, the Savak, who have been put up against the wall and given their just deserts".

Indeed the Iranian revolution has made imperialism-and in particular US imperialism-wary of its traditional devices of the truncheon, the boot and the bullet to repress revolutionary struggles.

This is why Carter and other US bourgeois politicians are looking for more "acceptable" and subtle ways of preserving the stability of capitalism and imperialist exploitation in Ireland.

The fact that the Irish struggle has stubbornly refused to lie down , and become the common punchbag of the Labour and Tory leaders • alike must now remind British socialists of their duty to fight consistently in the labour movement for concrete solidarity with the Irish war of liberation.

We must fight alongside Irish workers not for any phony bourgeois "peace plan" but uncompromisingly for the defeat of British imperialism, the withdrawal of British troops, the expropriation of major industry and the banks, and for a united Irish workers' republic.