Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff, what its implications are for us.
the IRA been so successful? Firstly, it has of course greatly improved its military technique. Secondly, and much more important, it clearly possesses now a mass base in the nationalist population of The IRA is no longer, as in the the Six Counties. '40s and '50s, a small body of heroic men whose the mass of the population did not really identify. For that reason they could easily be isolated, hunted down and defeated. In those days internment could work. Today the IRA is clearly the armed vanguard of a mass anti-imperialist movement among the nationalist population. Therefore it cannot easily be isolated from that population. Its fighters come from the people, are assisted and protected by the people, and can melt back into the ghettoes when pursued by the army. Because of this, the attempts over the last few months to isolate the IRA from the nationalist population have been completely counter-productive. In order to hunt down the IRA, the Army has had to use methods of terror against the population which shelters it, that have completely alienated the nationalist minority. Now the authorities have attempted to behead the resistance to imperialist rule by introducing internment. In thus attempting to isolate and neutralise the militants, they have produced a reaction which has demonstrated the total solidarity with the IRA of the population in which it operates. THe events of the last week in the Six-Counties can only be described as a popular insurrection against the British Army of In response to the continued resistance to their rule, Heath and Faulkner are being driven inexorably towards a policy of trying to smash completely the organisations and the will to fight of the nationalist population by a campaign of terror.
This in its turn means they are forced to turn more and more for help towards the Orange stormtroops. It is noticeable that not a single Orangeman was among the 300 interned. And this despite the fact that there are plenty of guns and gunmen in the Protestant areas. Furthermore, the Orangemen have not been nearly so quiet in the last few months as the silence of the British press would indicate. They have been active intimidating Catholics-and they have been on the streets this week. Not all the casualties have been caused by the British Army in the last few days.
What is more important, the Army has at best been turning a blind eve to their activities and at worst actively collaborating with them. Noone in Belfast believes any longer that the Army is any "peace-keeping" force. As it turns more and more to a policy of terror and intimidation against the Catholics, it turns also towards those who have been engaged in that The decision to introduce internment was not an easy one. It has obvious military advantages-even if they are mainly in the short-term. But it also has seen by the reaction it produced. It is the latest stage in a developing policy of repression which will not end with internment. To crush the resistance of the nationalist population will require more and more drostic measures-curfew, martial law. Not only does this virtually eliminate the prospect of reconciling the minority to British rule, but a policy of contined repression does not even have any guarantee of success. There are not enough troops in the British Army to impose a curfew on Belfast. Secondly, there is the effect in the South to be considered. The more Britain is seen to be pursuing a policy of out-and-out repression in the North, the more difficult it becomes for Lynch & Co. to collaborate with that policy. It is clear that Britain wanted Lynch to introduce internment in the South before it was introduced in the North-not only to limit the ability of the IRA to use the South as a base, but to confuse and disarm politically the minority in the North. Lynch has hot done that because of the increasingly explosive situation in the Twenty-Six Counties-again, the situation is different from the '40s and '50s. Dublin may yet be forced into a policy of repression against the Republican Movement, but it is desperately trying at present to get Britain to make some concessions which will cool the situation in the Six Counties.
What are the perspectives for the future? The policy of British inperialism in Ireland is in ruinsdemolished by the continuing resistance of the minority in the North and in particular of the IRA to the Orange State. The idea of using the British Army to stabilise the situation while an accommodation was worked out between the Unionist ruling class, the Catholic middle classes and the Southern bourgeoisie. "Stabilising" the situation now means crushing the minority in the North, thereby ruling out such an accommodation. Having created the Orange monster, British imperialism now finds it trampling all over its carefully nurtured strategy for a gradual and peaceful reunification of Ireland as a British client state in the context of a capitalist Europe. British policy is now in an impasse. The struggle in the North will continue and deepen, the crisis will inevitably extend to the South, and the "Irish Question" will loom larger and larger in For revolutionaries in this country, it is imperative that as the Irish revolution enters a new stage we redouble our efforts in solidarity with it. We must continue to inform the British working class as to what is really going on in Ireland and to mobilise the maximum forces in solidarity actions.
Let us have no illusions-this will not be an easy task. To give complete support to the armed struggle of the IRA against the British Army will expose us to all sorts of chauvinist hysteria and repression. Nevertheless we must continue to say that we are for the IRA, for the defeat of the British Army-and to explain to the British working class that the liberation of Ireland is one of the prerequisites for social revolution in Britain.
British Troops Out NOW! -David Cameron Sean Mac Stiofain, Chief of Staff, Provisional IRA IRISH SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN As the situation in the North of Ireland becomes sharper, the work of the Irish Solidarity Campaign (ISC) becomes more necessary. ISC today is the only organisation which is mobilising both Irish and British militants in action against British imperialism in Britain.
During the last months ISC has built up an incredible record of activity. Not only has the campaign participated in, and initiated, demonstrations, pickets, etc., it has recognised the very real need for education and propaganda to explain the political situation in Ireland. This is evidenced by the highly successful series of Forums organised in London; ISC is the only organisation which has offered a platform to both Provisional and Official Republicans to explain the policies of their movements. There have been two issues of its newspaper, Irish .. Citizen; the first print of the second issue sold out a few days after it came off the press. Both issues have contained striking and dramatic posters.
With the involvement of Scottish troops in the Six Counties, the work of Glasgow ISC has a special significance, and despite the ever present threat from local Orange extremists the branch has never let up in its activities. Its meetings at the "Barrows" (Glasgow's equivalent of Petticoat Lane) have regularly attracted crowds of up to 200, and have become a feature of political life in the city. When the British Army launched a recruiting drive to get more unemployed young Scotsmen for use against the Irish people, ISC countered with a leafleting campaign.
In October ISC plans demonstrations in both London and Glasgow. The Glasgow one will take place on October 16th, and the London one on the 24th. Speaking tours are being organised to publicise them, and working up to the demos. there will be a series of smaller demos. and pickets.
If you are interested in ISC and want more information, please fill in the form below and post to:
ISC, 22 Duncan Terrace, London N. 1.
Name.
Address:
Those who profess to favour freedom yet deprecare agitation, are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
... Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
-Frederic Douglas West India Emancipation Speech, 1857.
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As the first wave of the upsurge which greeted internment recedes, it is necessary for British revo- lutionaries to understand what is happening and
Why have Faulkner and his British masters now introduced internment? Essentially, it is an act of desperation on their part, and a tribute to the increasingly successful urban guerrilla campaign conducted by the IRA over the past year. Why has
exploits may have had the passive sympathy of many of their compatriots, but who were basically seen as coming from the outside, and with whom
disadvantages. In the first place, it has deepened the gulf between Britain and the minority, as has been