on thousands keed and several chels waving a bace the country, 35 now trying to dredgr ap collaborators among the Bengalis who are ready to speak for their oppressors. But the army is finding it extremely difficalt to get the help of many such Bengalis.
Last Jane Valiya Khan had sent Begum Sulaiman, the only daughter ot the deceased Awomi Lengue chief and a former Prime Minister, Mr. Suhrawardy, to Dacca to mobilise political elements inside Bangla Dest to cooperate with the army clique. Asno responsible Bengali politicos responded to Begum Sulaiman's overture fawurahly, she had to retum empty-handed. This undoubtedly Amin, the 73-year-old parliamentarian of pre-Independence vintage and one of the only two non-kwami Leaguers who won last wevember s cocoons trom wast bengal, I was aporled that mr. Amin had refused do have anything to do with Yahya Khan under the present set-up inde linitely by brute forse, Yahya's next mone was to enlist the services of a fow known quislings who acted in the past as agents of West Pakistani feudal-bureaucratic-bourgeoisie clique. A motley by the informed public everywhere with disdain.
neater or suen colinorators is a poutcal reject Eroin bast Bengal, Hamidst Hug Chowdhury. Hay, who is the owner of Dacca's largest group of newspapers. Pakistan Observer Publications, is one of the most hated Bengalis alive. He collaborated with the West copittist class alf along. For a brief period in the 50s he mose to be a Fonden Minister of Pakistan. This man was town over recently from Ducca, where he fearod reprisals by BanglaDesh guerrillas, ulong with his family, at the cost of the Pakistan govern ment to a safe haven in Switzerland.
Hamidul Huy had reportedly met the Swiss authorities in August accompanied by the Pakistan Ambassador in Berne to apprise them of Yahya's twisted wersion of the BanglaDesh crisis But even he Swiss were not impressed Hamidal Hug has been chosen by Tahya to hend an eight-mar delegation lo the L.N. to plead the Pakistant case. However. che Bengalis beliere Pakistan has no case to plead. Yalya Khan, a usurper of power in Pakistan, himself has no rights to rule, let alone speak for Pakistan. The armed struggle in BanglaDesh together with 3083-RIPTIONS 35135U657 55.00 SPECIAL OFFER: "For New America POITLE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. 34133
The opening of concentration camps in the Sir Countles has produced a muss popular uprising against the British Army, These confrontations between the nationalist minority, its armed vanguard and the State forces have been the most widespread and prolonged since the Civil Rights upsurge in October 1968. It is vital that we understand the nature and dynamics of the present struggle. This demands an analysis of the political background and repercussions to the recent events.
BACKGROUND As we have outlined in previous articles on the Trish struggle, the upsurge over the past three years results from the uncompleted national democratic revolution. The creation of the Orange secturian Statein 1920 represented a defeat for that revolution. The maintenance of that State demanded the political oppression of the nationalist minority who consisted of one-third of the population. The Civil Rights mosement arose in Autumn 1968 as a protest against this oppression. The particular conjuncture ut which it urose found British imperialism undergoing an acute structural crisis. Britain was attempting un overhaul of the political superstructure of the whole of Ireland prior to both islands entering the Common Marker as an integrated conomic unit. This rationalisation demanded a dismantling of the sectarian superstructure of the Six Counties. Since the granting of Civil Rights was incompatible with the existence ofan Orange sectarian colony, every step forward of the popular movement produced deep fissures within the Orange bloc. British imperialism and its Stormont clients found themselves the victims of the Frankenstein monster they had created and lovingly nurtured over the previous 150 years the Orange mass movement. On the one hand it was faced by mass mobilisations of the Nationalist minority demanding social change, on the other by the Unionist right wing totally hostile to any interterenoes with the status quo. This intransigence found political expression in Paisleyism outside the Unionist Party and the Craig opposition within.
These acute contradictions first manifested themselves in August 1969. Then, exasperated by the Stormont government's "passivity" in dealing with the subversives, the Orange para-military B-Specials launched attacks on Catholic ghettoes. Only the direct intervention of the British Army prevented the disintegration of the State. But their intervention only had the effect of freezing the situa tion. The political consequences of August were that the national question was posed quite sharply-the denial of Civil Rights to the Catholic minority, the imbility of Stormont to grant Civil Rights, were now cleurly linked to the existence of the Orange State, to the partition of the country. The conflict had grown over into a struggle for national liberation. This found political expression in the resurgence of Irish Republicanism. No longer were the IRA the isolated hillside men of the "40s and 50s but the armed vanguard of the Catholic working class ghettoes. A new stage of struggle was opening up-one of urban guerrilla warfare.
Each upsurge of the nationalist minority was answered with increasing repression by the British Army, These repressive activities deepened and extended the resistance in the ghettoes. The growing nationalist opposition further accentuated the tensions within the Unionist bloc as the extreme right-wing demanded crackdowns on "IRA terrorist gunmen". It was against this background that concentration camps, cuphemistically referred to as internment without trial, were introduced.
INTERNMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH The decision of Faulkner to opt for internment was motiv motivated by his desire to preserve the Unionist bloc trom final disintegration and by his desire to remain as head of the Unionist Party. Tuso, the British Military Commander in the Six Counties was against the use of internment because he was well aware of its ineffectiveness as a means of smashing the IRA. However, Faulkner, disregarding the consequences, adamantly pressed for internment. In order to gain the acquiescence of the Heath government, Faulkner waved the spectro of an Orange uprising, and the Tories, as in 1912, obligingly succumbed.
As expocted, the internment has been a complete failure.
Resistance, a broadsheet of the Officials, described it thus:
"Internment has failed in its attempt to wipe out the Republican movement. Very few members of the movement fell into enemy hands, and the IRA was able to defend the people with all its forces intact. The Republican Clubs have refused to be driven underground by this crude intimidation and repression and are continuing to organise the people in their defence as they did before.
"En the fury of their failure, the British retaliated against the people with a calculated brutality which shocked all:
men were drageed half naked behind military vehicles with sand bags over their heads, others were whisked into the air in helicopters and told they were being thrown to their deaths and while blindfolded thrown out a few feet from the ground a torture learnt from the Americans in Vietnam -all were severely beaten and one man was savaged by Alsatian dogs let loose on him by his sadistic captors; a girl of fifteen in the Markets area of Belfast had her arm pulled from its socket, and the IRA of that area took action against the thugs, fighting a nine-hour battle around Inglis bakery and inflicting several fatalifies on the British troops.* The accounts of the tortures and brutalities have been well documented. These have been completely ignored by the British press. The Daily Telegraph-in fact has been The response of the nationalist minority to the aftempted mass internment can only be described as a popular uprising. Bitter experience has taught the people that the force they can trust to defend their areas against attack is not the British Army, not some Utopiun trade union defence force, hut their own defence militia the Irish Republican Army. The attentpt of the British Army to liquidate it met with widespread resistance. Up to recently the brunt of the active opposition to the British occupation has taken place in Belfast and Derry: Now other areas have come out in resistance... Newry, Strabane, Lurgan, Coalisland and Crosmaglen.
ARMED STRUGGLE The focus at present seems to be shifting from armed confrontation to civil disobedience campaigns; the organisation of one-day strikes, and the creation of free areas behind the barricades. However, with a perspective of prolonged social crisis, the issue of arred struggle will be posed very clearly in the coming period. Just as surely as the successful Civil Rights mobilisations in the early period of 1969 put armed defence of the Catholic ghettoes on the agenda, so too will a civil disobedience campaign of any bite faced armed repression.
The revolutionary potential of the barricuded arens seerns to be understood more clearly at this moment by the British Army than the revolitionary vanguard. Hence we see the speed at which they move in to dismantle them. Again a decision to maintain free areas will require an armed detence.
SMASH THE ORANGE STATE; ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY If there is one lesson that can be drawn from the past two years' struggle, it is that the Orange State is unreformable. It was born out of religious bigotry: it institutionalised and perpetuated religious bigolry. Talk, therefore, of democratising it or of electing a "progressive" government in Stormont is completely utopian. The aim of the revolutionary foroes must be to smash it. As we have emphasised prevlously, this will need a political strategy as well as a military one, It is therefore a very significant development that all sections of the anti-Unionist population are trying to institute a transitional form of political power -a People': Assembly. Again, as we emphasised before, it is vital that the SDLP does not gain control of this or of the civil disobedience campaign. The People's Assembly, the Dril Ulrich. therefore should be based on local organs of People's Power: the military leadership of the "free areas"; tenants" associations and trade union bodies who support the anti-inperioltst struggle, local goverrument councils who give their allagiance to the new assembly.
THE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH The indiscriminate and brutal imprisoning of all sections of the anti-Unionist population by the Stormont regime; the brutality of British soldiers towards the Catholic community and the active collaboration of the British Army and Protestant extremists in attempting to smash certain Catholic areas in Belfast have made it impossible for Union Jack Lynch to introduce internment in the South at this stage. Those who maintain that there is no difference between Orange and Green Tories will be completely unable to understand Lynch's present "Republican" rhetoric, and his backing of the civil disobedience campaign. The forner political strength of the Fiannu Fail Party, its populist nature & now beconting a source of weakness. We see Lynch caught herween his long-term need to establish a closer political and economic relationship with Britain und his present need to maintain political control over a party in which he faces many defections to the Blancyites. It may well be that certain sections of the Southern bourgeoisie, fed up with the ineptitude of the Fianna Fail regime, will shift political support to the "safer" Fine Gael party in the near future, In the period following the pogroms of August 69, there was a rapid build-up of the mass mobilisations in support of the struggle. These were quickly diffused as a result of the interventions of the British troops, This time the mobilisations have been gathering momentum more slowly but promise to be more sustained and deep-going. Already there have been mass meetings in such centres as Driblin, Cork, Waterford and Limerick. There have been many solidarity resolutions and calls for industrial action from all sections of the trade union movement and tenants' associations. All this makes the possibility of Lynch introducing internment in the South more remote.
OUR TASKS IN BRITAIN : NEED FOR A POLITICAL The introduction of internment has again produced a climate in Britain where it will be possible to gain widespread sipport for the struggle in Ireland. Already there have been pickets, sit-ins und demonstrations in several areas. There has also been some limited industrial action. The tragedy is that other political tendencies have not seen the need to do consistent work on the Trish issue over the past two years. We are likely to soc such umbrella orgimisations us the Anti-Interment League springing up over the coming period. These organisations can play a useful courdinating role but what is really needed is a potitical campaign.
Revolutionaries should not merely be waging a campaign against internment, but be availing of the heightened interest in the Trish situation created by the introduction of internment to exolain the totel role of British Imperialism in