Ireland Repression: Where Do Cp Really

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WSL Lon‹ A major feature article revealing details of the intensive military surveillance of the Catholic ghetto areas of Belfast appeared in the Morning Star of March Reporter David Whitfield vividly sketched the picture of army spy posts based in high rise flats, from which every movement of every individual resident in a selected "patch" is monitored and recorded by trained observers through the sights of high velocity armalite rifles.

The immense scale of the surveillance operation is stressed -to the extent that soldiers drafted in receive prior training and briefing using mock-ups of the area they are to watch.

Civil rights

And at the same time the article shows the inability of even these immensely thorough and painstaking operations to suppress the republican movement, quoting one senior commander as saying:

"another 20 battalions would not stop the killings and terrorism."

But the Morning Star's preoccupation throughout the article is not so much with the national oppression of the Irish people, as with the abuse of civil rights in 'Northern Ireland'.

This is clear from the conclusion of the article, which calls not for an end to the spying on and repression of anti-imperialist forces, nor for the withdrawal of British troops, but simply for the troops to be confined to barracks:

'If the Land-Rover and "pig" patrols were to stay in the likes of the Girdwood fort, the people of New Lodge and elsewhere would shut their doors-and get on with building a better life out of the literal ruins of Belfast's ghettoes."

Such a statement sums up the utter futility of the "Better Life for All" campaign espoused by the TUC bureaucracy and the Communist Party as a means of evading the fight against British imperialist occupation in The idea that it is possible reforms (or even the legislation of a "Bill of Rights" through Reconstruet the Fourth Interacti No. t w. M79 DISCUSSION BULLETIN 60, including p&p from BM Box 5277, ›n WC1V 6XX.

the British Parliament) to transform the six-county Orange sectarian statelet into a viable unit-in which chronic mass unemployment and economic devastation can be overcome-is a delusion consciously peddled by the Stalinists.

As such it is completely in line with their counter-revolutionary strategy of a "peaceful"

parliamentary road to socialism in Britain.

Stark reality

It refuses to confront the stark reality of the imperialist exploration of a divided Ireland, which produces unemployment and grinding poverty both sides of the border, while superprofits are reaped by giant multinationals and imperialist banks.

The British army-whether aggressively harassing Catholic workers on the streets of the six counties, spying on them from the rooftops, or even waiting quietly in their barracksremains the guarantee for imperialism that such profitable exploitation will continue.

The military repression of the republican movement North and South is seen as the key to stemming the revolutionary mobilisation of Irish workers and small farmers in united struggles that could lead over into the fight for nationalisation of banks and basic industries and the establishment of a workers' republic.

ror the stalinists, nowever, it is simpiy the overt evidence of this repression which is unacceptable.

"Smash the IRA" is the slogan for a National Front march planned in Glasgow for March 15.

Finding it impossible to secure a base for a fascist movement in Scotland on the basis of its routine racialism, the NF has set out to exploit the divisions between Glasgow's protestant and Catholic workers.

NF Scottish organiser Raymond Skinner has appealed to "Loyalist patriots" to attend the march.

But while the fascists and ment has been reluctant to take a stand in opposition.

Turned to police

Like the. Labour council in Tameside, which refused to mobilise the workers movement against a fascist march that was aimed to break up a planned Trades Council conference. on Ireland, Scottish labour bureaucrats have turned first to the Indeed they themselves are prepared to do their share of witch-hunting and attacking the republican movement.

Evaded

In January Communist Party members in Oxford joined with extreme right wingers in a bid to whip up hostility to socialists who had supported a Provincial Sinn Fein demonstration. A leaflet written by CP member Tony Gallagher claimed that:

"Many TGWU members have died or been maimed or made homeless or jobless because of Provisional IRA activity in Northern Ireland and England.

Mass executions [!] of TGWU working people have been carried out. The TGWU totally opposes such violence."

Since then embarassed CP members have evaded questions on the matter. But the cancellation-under threat of disaffiliation from the TUC-of a March 1 labour movement conference on Ireland called by Tameside Trades Council raises once again the question of where the CP stands on Ireland.

No stand On March 4, Tameside Trades Council correctly voted 28-3 to defy the instruction from TUC General Secretary Len Murray, and to reconvene the banned conference.

Yet the Morning Star-despite its professed concern for democratic rights in the six counties-took no stand against the TUC blackmail, and police to ban stration.

This reluctance of Scottish labour leaders to stand in a united front with anti-imperialist fighters in struggle against the NF-sworn enemies of trade unionism and socialism-opens up severe dangers both for March 15 and for the future.

It is vital that a counter demonstration is mobilised with the aim of stopping the NF and OVER 70 trade unionists and Labour activists attended a successful day school on Ireland on March 8, sponsored by Leicester. South CLP and Leicester Trades Council.

After discussions on television coverage of the Irish war and on the "troops out" demand, those present voted reported on Thursday that:

"The TUC is still being defied by Tameside Trades Council over Northern Ireland policy and import controls"

Communist Party members in every trade union branch and labour movement body should be called upon to say openly where they and their Party stand on the witch-hunting of the republican movement and on the attempts by the TUC to suppress discussion on the lrish war of liberation.

And if they are prepared to hound and gag • opponents of British imperialist policy in Ireland whv should the Errorra- CITAA MIMATTA Stalinists stop short of similar bureaucratic measures to repress socialist opponents of British capitalism at home? defending the forces opposed British imperialism in Ireland.

While the Workers Socialist League has profound political differences with the programme, perspective and methods of the republican movement, we call unambiguously for labour movement action to defend republicans and socialists against attack from fascist and right wing forces or from the British capitalist state. endorse four demands:

*Trops out now!

*Repeal the Prevent Terrorism Act!

*Self determination f mination for the Irish people!

*Political status for Irish PoWs!

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their Orange stable-mates organ- ise, the Glasgow labour move-