Hunger strike: force labour leaders to act

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Well, November 15 came and went but we did not reach our target of the first £1,000 in our £1500 Special Fund.

In fact we fell short by £261.25, leaving us with a huge task ahead of us if we are to complete this fund as intended by the WSL 6th Anniversary Rally on 6 December.

We are asking all readers and supporters of Socialist Press to consider giving a day's pay to help us maintain the work of the paper in this crucial period of emerging struggle Send a donation to: Socialist Press Fund, BM Box 5277, or natol demonstration, action in solidarity with the ber 7 national demonstration, Irish people!

SKiT Irish TGWU office in Derry, where an estimated 10,000 people took part in protest strike action and a demonstration last Wednesday. 37 workplaces were involved.

A turn-out of only 2,000 people on last Saturday's national demonstration calling for a British withdrawal from Ireland underlined yet ted in the fight for solidarity with the Irish people.

Conspicuously absent from the march were trade union banners and trade union officials. Ernie Roberts and Clive Soley were the only Labout MPs who turned out. The remainder either support the military occupation of Ireland or couldn't be bothered to oppose it.

If ever there was an occasion when the struggle against imper¡alist oppression in Ircland might have been expected to attract a degree of support trom humanitarian and liberal' forces it was Saturday's march. Called and organised with the involvement of the Young Liberals, the demonstration also took place in the third week of a hunger strike to the death by seven republican prisoners in the 'H' Blocks of the Long Kesh concentration camp.

During the week it was announced that women republican prisoners in Armagh Gaol are to join the hunger strike alongside the protest of the men.

The prisoners are fighting for five demands which would effectively restore to them special category status as political prisoners. Special category status was granted to republican prisoners by the Heath government in 1972 following a hunger strike protest-but was removed dy to Lavuur govern- and he tho lahaur aavornment in 1976.

Since then the British government, the press and the prison screws have used every means at their disposal to crush the resistance of republican prisoners at Long Kesh who have refused to do prison work or wear prison clothing which they correcly thev rarrertly cee as an attemnt to brand them as common criminals.

The women at Armagh joined the 'dirty' protest in rebruary or unis year.

The hunger strikes are a desperate move prompted by the abject failure of the British labour movement to fight alongside the Irish working class for an end to British military rule in the six counties They have given an added lease of life to Charter 80, a grouping set up to champion the five demands of the prisoners "on a humanitarian basis"

Charter 80 has gathered the signatures of a handful of Labour MPs and some well-known union leaders.

Lawrence Daly and Mick McGahey (NUM), Ron Todd (TGWU) and Bob Wright (AUEW) are some of the more surprising names on the list-cince they have never nrevinnslv lifted a finger in solidarity with the Trish people.

Special against the Tory government.

London WC1N 3XX.

But they now plainly regard their Charter 80 signatures as sufficient to salve their consciences while the hunger strikers starve to death: none of them mobilised contingents from their organisations on Saturday's march.

The need for active solidarity is now urgent. The hunger strikers-already dangerously weak-could be dead. before Christmas. The Tory government will not be budged by a list of meaningless signatures.

Every trăde union and labour movement body must be called upon to pass emergency resolutions in support of the hunger strikers' five demands. and to fight for such policies at local, regional and national level.

There is no groundswell of liberal sentiment that will shift the Tories on Ireland: only a fight by socialists for a clear stance in opposition to British imperialism can show the necessity of the British labour movement going beyond its present anti-Tory militancy to adopt a position of solidarity with the Irish people.

*Support the hunger strikers: Political status now!"

*Troops Out Now! Allow the Irish people to determine their own political future!

*For labour movement TAL APPT

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again the scale of the political task to be confron-