HE MRY BE ONE OF SURS: No one with even the slightest acquuintance of frish history can accept the absurd story of the British press that the IRA is a tiny group of blood-thristy maniacs who somchow have imposed themsclves on the trish people. The IRA has deep roots in the whate development of Irish history. In 800 years of British rule, British bloodshed and British massacres, the Irish people have never been crushed.
On innumerable occasions the Irish people have risen, weapons in hand, to attack their oppressor, The IRA grew out of this long history following the most glorious of all these strugeles —the Dublin Easter Rising of 1916. It was the strugele of the IRA which finally expelled direct British rule from 26 of the 32 counties in Ireland, and it was only traitors to the cause of trish freedom which prevented the final expulsion of British political rule from the North.
Since the formation of the sectarian Northern state it is the IRA which has defended the Catholie population against the attacks of the British army and the Loyalist thugs, It is the armed self-defence force of the Republican population, The IRA is the product of a profound social process —not of some backdoor conspiracyBut the IRA, to its everlasting glory, has pone further, IL has recognised, not clearly, not with u socialist understanding, but with far better sense of reality than many so-called Marxists, that the canse of the oppression of the people of the North, the cause of the domination of the Protestant workers by reaction, the couse of the bloodbath in the North of Ireland is British rule, The IRA has set itself the target of freeing Ireland from that domination. For that reason it has waged wat, and continues to wage war, against Brilish Imperialism.
In the course of the strugde the IRA has made many mistakes —both political and military. Politically it has never understood that Ireland can only be freed from British rule by destroying capitalism in Ireland. It has never understood that to wage a real war against Britain it must simultaneously wage a war against the Irish capitalist class. Finally it has never understood how to organise the people of Ireland into real mass organisations of struggle, Militarily it has not seen that armed struggle cannot be an end in itself, but has to he directed by a political stratery and a politicni anderstanding.
For this reason the IRA has made terrible and tragic errors which only set back its own cause. Ij any of its supporters were associated with the Birmingham bombings these were the latest example of such a tragic error.
But let there be no doubt as to where the responsibility for such violence really lies. It lies not with the IRA but first and above all with British imperialism, Britain has murdered, starved, and massacred in Ireland on a scale of violence the IRA could never match in a thousand years. It is not the IRA but British imperialism which is responsible for every single one of the 1200 deaths in the North erests, Derry. the carth.
of human history. recollection.
WRP), and Tariq All (IMG). of Ireland in the last years. British imperialism had no hesitation in arranging bombings in Dublin when it wanted anti-IRA legislation passed. British imperialism had no compunction in rutbieasly murdering its dupes such as Kenneth Lennon, British imperialism would be quite capable of killing not 19 but tens of thousands in this country if it suited its intBrilish imperialism is the most bloodstained monster the world has ever seen, It maintained its "peace' in Britain on the bones and blood of Arabs, Indians, Jews, Latin Americans and the Irish, British imperial ism supported the destruction of whole cities in Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wilson, through his support of the Americans in Vietnam, is an accomplice In mass murder on a scale even Hifler would have ad. mired and which the forces of the IRA could never even conceive of, let alone curry out.
Bat the second responsibility for those deaths in Birmingham lies with the leaders of the working cluss in Britaio who have refused to struggle to end Britain's iron grip on Ireland. If the IRA makes errors it is above all in an attempt to cut through the wall of silence the working ciuss ntovement has allowed to exist on the horrurs of the North of Ireland, If one millionth of the effort put into condemning the IRA had been put into getting Britain out of Ireland there woald be no Birminghams, no Guildfords, and none of the far varter horrors perpetrated by the British in Belfast and As for the gentlemen of the law, let us make one thing clear for them. The IMG has never, and does not now, support the IRA by material, financial or by any other such means, We don't have the ability to, even if we wanted. Neither do we support them politically. We seek to build a Trotskyist organisation, the Revolutionary Marxist Group, in Ireland We do, however, know one thing. We do not and never will mistake the violence of the slave for the violence of the slaveowner. You gentlemen of British Imperialism, you are responsible for every single one of the 19 deaths in Birmingham and in every other place where British imperialism befouls the face of Any crors which may be committed by the IRA are the result of an oppressed people striking against their master. Your violence is an unspeakable crime tor which you will be condemned through the whole When revolutionaries score the final victory in Ireland and in Britain they will learn from the erors of the IRA, hut they will be proud to stand in its traditions as the vanguard of un oppressed people. You, the Jenkins and Wilsons of thris world. will he remembered only with disgust and loatting as the accomplices of some of the most fearful crimes of human history. The IRA will be remembered with pride when your names have follen from all human A rare occasion: platform at a united front meeting in Apr 1973 to protest against police reprassion, with (1 to r): Duncan Hollas (IS), Gery Lawiass (chair), Gerry Healy ISLL-now