PRC-UTE
20th April 2007, 19:56
The Plough
(Web site http://www.theplough.netfirms.com/)
Vol. 4- No 12
Thursday 19th April 2007
E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Paty
1) Editorial
2) The Republican Movement and Socialism 190*70
3) Cuba Update
4) Labour news
5) Letters
6) What¹s On
IRSP National Hunger Strike Commemoration -26th Anniversary
Sunday 20th May
Assemble 2pm
Rosemount Factory, Dery
March to Republican Socialist Plot, City Cemetery
All Welcome
Editorial
Quote
"We Irish Republicans believe that te Republic exists. At times it does
appear intangible but we believe that itis the legitimate government of
Ireland and that its authority resides with the Continity Army Council and
Executive. That is why we are often frustrated by otherswho claim to be
republican yet who do not believe this. There are some in Ireland today and
indeed within the Republican Movement itself that propose what is known as
the ³Broad Front². Their misleading suggestion is that there is strength in
unity. This s simply untrue. Any such proposal would obviously be a rain
on the resources of the Movement and would only be of assistance to those
who have notthe same faith as us. By weakening ourselves and rising others
up we endaner the All Ireland Republic. Can we risk all for a temporary
benefit? Furtermore some of these other groups actually claim that they are
the Republican Movement and that they represent its authority. For we true
Republicans to suggest such an alliance is heresy and should be avoided at
all costs."
(Speech at Republican Sinn Fein 207 Wexford Easter Commemoration)
Quote.
³The 1916 Rising against British rule in Ireland meant (a) the re-assertion
of the ight of the Irish people to national independence; (b) the re-birth
of Cristian idealism * the idea and © the emergence in the 20th century
of the nti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement which was to spread
world-wide²
(Speaking at the GPO, Dubln, on Easter Monday, April 9, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh,
President of Republican inn Fein,)
Quote
³Republican Sinn Féin represents the sole political alternative capable of
providing this, coming from a position of solid and unequivocal Irish
Republicanism. Other groups or organisations may attempt to hold this ground
but Republican Sinn Féin are the ony political organisation to uphold the
right of the Irish people, acting as a unit, to national independece, who
reject both partitionist states and their respective assemblies and with
policies capable of delivering a New Ireland for all of the Irish people.²
(Easter Sunday April 8 Republican Sinn Féin Vice President Des Dalton
speaking in Derry)
The above quotations illustrate the narrowness, arrogance and elitism of
Republican Sinn Fein. The Republic of Pearse and Connolly does not exist.
The IRSP do not recognise any legitimate Government resting in the
Continuity Army Council and Executive. No one need be frustrated by this.
Our allegiance ur cause is not to some intangible make believe but to the
Irish working clss. That is where our allegiance lies and to no other. Nor
do we ever attemt to equate either the 1916 Rising or the republican
struggle to the Christian religion. Not for us talk of Œhristian idealism¹,
Œheresy¹ nor mumbo jumbo about Œintagible¹ republics. We have seen
historically ow unquestioning faith can lead young men and women thrwing
their lives away in the hope of pradise. Too many of our young people have
bravely sacrificed their freedom or their lives in the armed struggle
without any clear political perspective to achieve that republic. We do not
claim to know all the answers but this we do know if he struggle is not
based on the bed rock of the working class and guided by a socialism based
on an objective analysis of material conditions then it is doomed to repeat
the failures of the past. Can Irish Republicans not learn from the past
failure?
1922 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922> - 1923
<http://en.wikipedia.rg/wiki/1923> Civil War- Defet
1939-40 S Plan or "Sabotage Campaign" or "England Campaign"- Defeat
196-61 The Border Campaign or Operation Harvest- Defeat
1970-1997 ³The Toubles²-Defeat
Seamus Costello, our founder and former leading mmber of the Republican
Movement before it irrevocably splintered into differing traditions from
1969 onwards, advocated the Brod Front policy, so dismissed contemptuously
by RSF. Seamus having participated in the 56-61 armed campaign and watched
the so called leftist drift f the movement during the sixties had come to
the clear conclusion in the early seventies that the so called swing to the
left by what wa then the Officials was indeed a sham driven not by
revolutionary priciples but by reformist aspirations. He recognised the
genuine revolutioary aspirations of many rank and file volunteers within
the provisional movemnt but had enough experience of the elitism of former
comrades, who took uponthemselves the mantle of leadership of a non
existing Republic, to know tha such was not the way to liberation and
socialism. So he advocated the Broad front policy as a way of bring together
all anti-imperialist orces. Tragically Seamus was taken from us before he
had fully developed th strategy.
Today we operate in very different circumstance from when Seamus lived. We
believethat the participation of Sinn Fein (P) in running the northern
state far rom advancing republicanism shows the extent of the republican
defeat. Yes, Northern nationalism based on a sectarian headcount has
advanced but don¹t et anyone pretend that that is a victory for
Republicanism. It is no.
Talks are taking place between arious republicans as to the best way
forward. The IRSP will happily take art in such talks but we will not be
party to recasting a Provo-model Mrk Two. We will bring our class politics
to anysuch meetings, maintain a critical eye on proceds and will work for
genuine unity in action with others while coninuing to build up the party¹s
strength.
This dition of the Plough carries an historical article examining the
so-called swing to the left of the Repubican Movement during the sixties.
It exposes that myth. Base on the experiences of our own comrades during
the late sixties and early seventies, the RSM never, as such, had illusions
in either the Officials or the Provisionals as vehicles for revolutionary
change. Both of those organisations swung to the left to s up working
class discontent and replenish their membership. Then as circumstances
chaned drifted to the right.
The recent history of the Sinn Fein (P) ith its rapid accommodation to a
British impsed settlement may have surprised some republicans. It did not
surrise the IRSP. We have always held firmly o the view that the
centrality of the working class in the struggle was the only way that
impeialism could be defeated. True there were ties when this movement
slipped and departed from the revolutionary path. But no movement was ever
formed fully mature and knowng all the right moves to make. Experience is
hard earned and as our movment learns from its experience we are better
placed to plot the way forward for class politics.
During the 1980¹s the eadership of Sinn Fein posed as leftists, advocated
scialism and persuaded many international basd socialists that they were a
genuine revolutionary force. At the sametime these ³socialists² were
demonising our own movement. Those who were fooled then, need like us, to
learn the lessons of history. One shallow does not a summer make and saying
one is socialist does not make one so.
Read the following article by Jim Lane and beware those who would proclaim
their socialism only as a means to fool the working class.
The Republican Movement and Socialism
1950*70
[First published in a supplement to the Starry Plough (organ of the Irish
Republican Socialist Party) Dec. 1987. This edition was published in 1989.]
Much mythology attends developments within the Irish Republican Movement in
the 1960¹s and because it has been purveyed ad nauseam, it has been accepted
as fact by many, even by republicans. Basically, the mythology informs us
that the Republican Movement moved significantly towards revolutionary
Marxism after the failure of the Border Campaign. In a recent book by some
latter-day Workers¹ Party intellectuals, we are told that a
³radicalisationŠfollowed the defeat of the IRA¹s previous military campaign,
that of 1956*62², and that Cathal Goulding saw the engendering of
³social revolution in the Republic²
as his priority during the 1960s[1] <#_ftn1>
What follows is an attempt to set the record straight and demolish some of
the well-cherished misconceptions about the Œleft-wing drift¹ of that
decade. Hopefully, it will help place those who later formed the leadership
of the Workers¹ Party in an historical perspective.
Cold War
The late 1940s and the 1950s was a period of great hardship in the lives of
the working class and small farmers of Ireland. Mass unemployment gave rise
to poverty, hunger and emigration. It was also the era of the Cold War when
pulpit and press gave forth on the Œevils¹ of communism. Nationalist
parliamentary politicians studiously ignored the plight of the people. With
all attempts to build an Œindependent¹ Irish capitalism behind tariff
barriers failing, they now concerned themselves with promoting an
Anti-Partition campaign and with declaring the 26 Counties a republic. With
the IRA declaring that
³the aim of the army is simply to drive the invader from the soil of
Ireland² [2] <#_ftn2>
and Sinn Fein (recently reunited with the IRA) stating that it was not
³and never was a political party²[3] <#_ftn3> workers had no reason to
expect help from that quarter.
Indeed, when McCarthyite witch-hunts were being conducted by the Catholic
Standard newspaper, the IRA took care to distance itself from the communists
who had earlier been interned with its volunteers in the Curragh.
It charged, in fact, that the interning of communists with republicans was
part of a Fianna Fail plot to influence the IRA with materialist ideas!
An editorial in the United Irishman in 1949 stated:
³The IRA have as constantly opposed communism as they have opposed British
domination and have ever denied to communists and imperialists alike a voice
in their councils or a plank on their platformsŠeven if communists were
sincere in their advocacy of Irish independence, we could never accept their
Marxian creed. Communism is a foreign ideology just as unsuited to Irish
character and temperament as British imperialism² [4] <#_ftn4>
Later in that year the same paper explained the tenacity of Irish
republicans in quasi-religious terms.
³Every Irish leader², it stated, ³has asserted that in order to gain the
Republic we must maintain our spirituality as it is the very quality that
has kept our movement the shrine of our National heritage. Ireland¹s cause
is essentially one, which appeals to saints and martyrs.[5] <#_ftn5>
No room for materialistic communists here, even if they be advocates of
Irish self-determination.
Unemployment
By 1957, unemployed workers under the banner ŒEmigrate, Starve or Fight¹ had
begun to make their presence felt, despite witch-hunts and lack of support
from the unions. In Dublin, in an effort to bring their protest in to the
Dail chambers, they succeeded in getting one of their leaders, Jack Murphy,
elected. In Cork, Sinn Fein reaction was to order any of its members who
were involved in the Unemployed Protest Movement (UPM) to leave. It was
contended that the UPM was a Free State political organisation, because it
had a member in the Dail. The reaction of Sinn Feiners was generally to
leave the Republican Movement rather than the unemployed movement. One man
who defied the order was given a show-trial, as an example to others, and
promptly dismissed.
Even before the UPM became Œcontaminated¹ by using Leinster House as a
platform to air its grievances, Sinn Fein had taken a hostile attitude to it
in many areas. At one stage, a group of about 40 unemployed, locked out of
Cork¹s Carpenter¹s Hall due to a mistake in booking arrangements, had
proceeded down the street, expecting to be facilitated in the nearby Sinn
Fein hall. They were refused, however, because local Sinn Fein leaders
claimed that they were communist inspired.
When a member of Sinn Fein, Norman Letchford, wrote and published a
pamphlet, ³Lives, Loves and Liberties - The Heresies of a Protestant
Republican,² he was dismissed ostensibly for not having sought permission to
publish. In fact, he had submitted a manuscript to his local Comhairle
Ceanntair. At his unsuccessful appeal hearing, he was condemned for
criticising the role of the Catholic clergy during the Great Famine.
To back up his dismissal, members were later informed that he was a
communist infiltrator and a former member of the Connolly Association. The
trials and tribulations of the Irish working class found little place in the
considerations of most Irish republicans in the 1950s; they were too busy
being Œsaints and martyrs¹.
This then is the Republican Movement in which the future Œleft-wingers¹ cut
their political teeth. This is the movement that they joined and the
movement whose policies they never fundamentally disagreed with until the
failure of the border campaign necessitated an internal rethink. Even while
they were supposedly undergoing a process of radicalisation in the prisons,
the bourgeois politics frequently shone through. Tomas MacGiolla, for
example, while in prison in late 1950s, spent some time defending Franco¹s
Spain against the verbal attacks of his more enlightened comrades.
New Leadership
Following the failure of the 1956*62 armed campaign in the 6 Counties, the
leadership of the Republican Movement was deposed and a new leadership
installed. Cathal Goulding assumed the leadership of the IRA and Tomas
MacGiolla took over as acting president of Sinn Fein. Goulding¹s involvement
with the IRA reached back to the 1940s and he was held in high esteem by his
peers. MacGiolla came to Sinn Fein in the early 1950s from the
Anti-Partition League. From a Free State background, he was a nephew of T.P.
Gill an Irish parliamentary member at Westminister. He had served on the Ard
Comhairle (National Executive) previously in 1956. With the ending of the
campaign, Goulding and MacGiolla were released from Mountjoy Jail on 20
April 1962. Sean Garland, also destined to play a major role in the coming
years, was released from Belfast Jail in July.
These men, along with some others, have been credited with leading the
Republican Movement to socialism. It is held that the failure of the armed
struggle to win appreciable support brought about a realisation by
republicans of the need to involve themselves in agitational activity
associated with the struggle of the exploited. We are told, primarily by the
Workers¹ Party, that this process, which began within the prisons, led to
the adoption of revolutionary socialism by the Republican Movement in the
early to mid 1960s.
What is never examined, however, is the reason why republicans decided to
involve themselves in agitational activity. It had to do with amassing
support that they hoped would rebuild the Republican Movement and hold solid
when they again launched an armed campaign. It had nothing to do with an
ideological change in their thinking with regard to the working class. It
was simply a change in tactics. Offering little or no threat to the
capitalist system, it found favour with most republicans.
This tactic of republican involvement in social protest in order to win
support for their petit bourgeois anti-partition objectives needs to be
understood by all those who strive for socialism and national liberation.
The working class is not there to be used, and workers have shown on
countless occasions that they resent being used and are pretty astute at
identifying and rejecting users. That is precisely why Sinn Fein today has
made little inroads in electoral terms in southern Ireland. Despite its
recent interest in social issues, its priority, indeed only real objective,
remains the ending of partition.
That there was no fundamental change in the Republican Movement¹s
ideological stand was evidenced later in 1962 when MacGiolla gave his
presidential address at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis. He declared that:
³In so far as the communist menace is a battle for men¹s minds, we should
undoubtedly be playing a leading part in the fight against it, as we should
be in the fight against materialism of every blend. Our greatest weapon in
the fight against all material philosophies is our essential spiritual
nature.²[6] <#_ftn6>
He then went on to outline a six point programme to
³fight communism or any other social or political ill of our day.²
Sinn Fein presidential addresses represent the view of the entire movement.
Obviously, spiritual Ireland was alive and well and entrenched in the
Republican Movement. The United Irishman commented:
The president of Sinn Fein has dealt with our place in the struggle against
communism in his presidential address. It is the only honourable and
reasonable contribution which we as a small Christian nation can make
towards the progress of civilisation and the cause of peace.[7] <#_ftn7>
The movement¹s anti-communism was later given further expression in an
article reviewing the position of communism in Europe:
³Poland has recently thrown off Soviet domination, has drawn away from
doctrinaire communism and has adopted a more conservative systemŠThe
Hungarian revolution has resulted in severe setback for communism in that
countryŠWith so much internal trouble and unrest, these countries in Eastern
Europe are a danger to nobody except themselves.²[8] <#_ftn8>
What should be noted here is that it was not the style of Œcommunism¹ that
existed in these countries that was being attacked, it was communism itself.
The Republican Movement clearly wished for the installation of bourgeois
democracy in Eastern Europe rather than a real system of socialist
democracy. Years later, when asked by a journalist if ³the policy adopted in
1962/3 was explicitly a socialist revolutionary policy², Cathal Goulding
replied that it was.[9] <#_ftn9>
Despite the movement¹s conservatism, a small group of people formerly
associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), the Connolly
Association and the Irish Workers¹ Party, found its way into the Republican
Movement or into its front organisations. They were in time to exert a major
influence on the thinking of some of the republican leadership. That they
could survive in such an anti-communist movement only goes to show the
extent of their reformism.[10] <#_ftn10>
In-Betweenism
In pursuance of their policy of agitation, republicans began to involve
themselves in the everyday struggles of the workers and small farmers. IRA
volunteers were instructed to join trade unions, but by 1965 it was admitted
Sinn Fein itself had failed to develop an active organisational structure.
There was much dissatisfaction with Sinn Fein and the IRA wished its role to
be confined to publicity and election work.
Whatever about the IRA curbing Sinn Fein, its president, Tomas MacGiolla,
was still given free rein to deliberate on communism:
³CommunismŠas it has manifested itself in many countriesŠis not an ideology
which would commend itself to the Irish people²[11] <#_ftn11>
The ambiguity of this statement is apparent. Was he issuing a blanket
condemnation of communism? Or was he merely condemning the distorted form of
communism that manifest itself in the Œsocialist¹ countries?
Coupled with the ritual condemnation of capitalism, the Republican Movement,
in attacking communism, seemed, like the Catholic Church, to want something
suspended between both. In reality, again like the Church, they wanted
capitalism with something of a social conscience. They sought economic
in-betweenism and frequently used James Connolly as a basis for their
utopian concept. The economic policy promoted by Sinn Fein was immeasurably
removed from any stand James Connolly ever took. It was nothing more than a
bizarre mixture of re-hashed Proudhonism and Social Credit theories.
In 1965, what MacGiolla described as the Œessential spiritual nature¹ of the
Republican Movement was greatly in evidence. The movement spearheaded
opposition to the use of English in the Roman Catholic Mass. In a front page
leading article, entitled ŒDemonstrations in Churches?¹ the United Irishman
announced:
A chapter is likely to be added to the history of republicanism and Roman
Catholic church relations when the change to the vernacular in the Mass
comes into forceŠfor the first time since the coming of St. Patrick to
Ireland the English language is not only to be given a place an official
status in the very heart of Church affairs, the Mass, but also, over most of
our country, a position of complete dominance. This, in the eyes of many, is
the consummation of the conquest and the end of hopes for spiritual and
intellectual independence, the first facet of republicanism. [12] <#_ftn12>
In the event, good sense took over and except for some more articles in
subsequent months, we were spared the demonstrations. Strange, however, to
find such Catholic-nationalist sentiments in an allegedly socialist
revolutionary organisation.
Going into 1966 with MacGiolla defending a free enterprise economy and
suggesting the co-operative movement as an alternative ³to either,
capitalism or communism²,[13] <#_ftn13> it was understandable that Ruairi
O¹Bradaigh could state emphatically during the Westminster election campaign
that the Republican Movement was not socialist.[14] <#_ftn14> At the Easter
Commemoration in Cork City that year, MacGiolla launched into an attack on
communism emphasising that it was an Œalien ideology¹.
In May 1966, an editorial in the United Irishman, contemplating who
republicans should support in the Free State presidential election, said of
candidate T.F. O¹Higgins, that he had ³very little to condemn him
personally.² Supporting fascism as a member of the Blueshirts in the 1930s
was not to be held against him. Such liberalism!
By 1967, as Goulding revealed in an interview in 1970, the Republican
Movement was dormant:
It wasn¹t active in any political sense or even in a revolutionary sense.
Membership was falling off. People had gone away. Units of the IRA and the
cumainn of Sinn Fein had become almost non-existent. We felt that something
dynamic was needed or the movement was going to break up and splinter into
pieces. We called a meeting of the Republican Army¹s local leadership at the
end of August 1967...at that conference of 1967 we started on a Friday night
and finished on a Sunday eveningŠthey suddenly realised that they had no
movement at all. They only thought they had a movement. Out of this
conference there came a number of recommendations. The first was that we
should openly declare for a Socialist Republic. That was now the objective
of the Republican Movement: to establish a Socialist Republic as envisaged
by Connolly and in keeping with the sentiments of the Proclamation of
1916.[15] <#_ftn15>
A Native Product
With a moribund movement, badly in need of a shot in the arm, the tattered
remnants of the leadership had got together for one weekend and come up with
the good old Socialist Republic. The Republican Movement clearly thought it
worthwhile to cash in on socialism¹s new-found popularity in the late 1960s,
so it jumped on the bandwagon. By November, Sinn Fein had tailed the IRA and
amended the party constitution to read that its objective was a Socialist
Republic. The army had decided the matter and the party had followed. Truly
indicative of a socialist vanguard party!
However, the Republican Movement now had that Œsomething dynamic¹.
³Socialism has nothing to do with either atheism or totalitarianism, as
is evident from a superficial reading of Connolly², MacGiolla told the
faithful in January 1969. He continued:
Neither is it a philosophy which must be imported. It is part of the
Republican tradition since the founding of the United Irishmen, was deeply
rooted among the Fenians, and was the driving force behind the 1916
rebellion.[16] <#_ftn16>
A few months later, socialism became even more acceptable when he claimed
that
³the revolutionary movements of the past allŠ recognised that socialism was
a native growth on Irish soil.²[17] <#_ftn17>
This nonsense hardly deserves comment, but it helps to show the reader the
level of mumbo-jumbo prevalent in the Republican Movement at the time.
Mythology has us believe that it was guided by advanced Marxists. But when
the heady days of armed conflict arrived, people like MacGiolla lost their
heads altogether. The notorious anti-communist, MacGiolla, in an interview
in July 1970, informed us that if things happened as he hoped, he would be
the Fidel Castro of Ireland.
³Yes!² he said, ³we have the same revolutionary style and objective. Mind
you, not that I have any personal ambitions to be an Irish Castro. As a man
I regard him as overemotional.²[18] <#_ftn18> I wonder did Castro, like ŒIce
Cool¹ MacGiolla, realise that socialism was a native growth of Irish soil?
Reformists
This then was the Republican Movement of the 1960s. It was a movement that
never strayed from reformism. It indulged in revolutionary posturing and
phrasemongery when such activities were popular, but it never genuinely
attempted to forge a Leninist-type revolutionary Marxist party. This is not
to say that there were not some genuine Marxists within the movement,
struggling for a way forward.[19] <#_ftn19> What it does mean is that the
Workers¹ Party is nothing less than the natural, and expected, product of
policies formulated by the so-called Œleft-wingers¹ of the 1960s. They had
always dismissed real revolutionary politics; it was only a matter of time
before they openly rejected revolutionary methods.
Today¹s Workers¹ Party, true to its creators design, does not seek the
overthrow of capitalism and the building of a socialist society. Rather, it
seeks simply to Œameliorate¹ the lot of Irish workers by working within the
system. It is nothing more than a second Labour Party in Ireland. What is
truly needed is not another Labour Party, but a Marxist party that makes the
achievement of social revolution its inviolable objective. Only with such a
party will an Irish Workers¹ Republic be built ( Jim Lane, Cork,
1989.)
Cuba Update 16 April, 2007
1.Barclays asks Cuban outfits to close accounts
2.Austrian bank tells Cuban-born customer to go elsewhere
3.Cuba condemns Posada possible release
4.Cuban music legends to play London
1. Barclays asks Cuban outfits to close accounts
Move follows scandal over Hilton Hotels
16 April 2007
Duncan Campbell
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian
Barclays Bank has told the London branches of two Cuban organisations to
take their accounts elsewhere in what is seen as the latest example of
pressure exerted by the United States on British companies to enforce its
embargo of the island. MPs are to discuss the controversial embargo at a
special meeting in the House of Commons next month.
The long-standing accounts held by Havana International Bank and Cubanacan,
a state-owned travel organisation, are understood to be healthy. But they
have been told to take their accounts elsewhere. A spokesman for Barclays
said: ³We operate in a number of jurisdictions around the world and that
requires careful monitoring to ensure compliance with different
regulations.²
A spokesman for the Cuban embassy in London said: ³We are aware of the
intensification of US pressure in various countries in order to make them
comply with the regulations of the blockade imposed on Cuba. These pressures
include the banking and financial system.²
The Hilton hotel group was at the centre of a row this year when their Oslo
hotel cancelled a Cuban trade delegation booking. After the Guardian
published details of a similar ban operated by the group in Europe, the
company said it could not ask staff to break British law forbidding
discrimination on the grounds of nationality.
The Hilton Hotels Corporation in London wrote to the government, stating:
³As a US-based company, we face a legal dilemma, with a strict ban on
trading with Cuba imposed by the US government².
Ian Carter, chief executive of Hilton International, is due to attend next
month¹s meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on Cuba to discuss the
embargo.
Colin Burgon MP, a member of the group, said: ³This is totally unnecessary.
We have on the statute book robust legislation that protects UK citizens and
visitors from discrimination.²
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=1044
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2057886,00.html
-------------------------------------------------
2. Austrian bank tells Cuban-born customer to go elsewhere
Blockade is being applied to all Cuba nationals abroad
14 April 2007
VIENNA, Austria - An Austrian bank recently bought by a US-led consortium
acknowledged Friday that it told a Cuban-born client to take her business
elsewhere and suggested that Washington¹s ban on commerce with Havana was
behind the decision.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/internationa...414p2g00m0in014 (http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/international/europe/news/20070414p2g00m0in014)
000c.html
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=1059
-------------------------------------------------
3. Cuba condemns Posada possible release
Main topic of conversation in the island
13 April 2007
Havana, Apr 15 (Prensa Latina) Cubans¹ condemnation of Luis Posada
Carriles¹s release and President Fidel Castro¹s denunciations of the US
government support for the terrorist were the main topics of conversation in
the Caribbean Island this week.
Posada Carriles¹s possible release on bail in Texas was condemned by
millions of Cubans, who demand that the terrorist be tried in the United
States or extradited to Venezuela.
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=1057
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7...-8C1B-D945E2BCD (http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE30455E1-80C3-4528-8C1B-D945E2BCD)
D3B%7D)=EN
<http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE30455E1-80C3-4528-8C1B-D945E2BC
DD3B%7D)&language=EN
<http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE30455E1-80C3-4528-8C1B-D945E2BC
DD3B%7D)&language=EN> >
-------------------------------------------------
4. Cuban legends to play London
La Linea Festival at the Barbican
Eliades Ochoa
Friday 20 April,7.30pm
and
Israel López ŒCachao¹ + Omar Puente & Robert Mitchell
Sunday 29 April, 7.30pm
Barbican Cente, London
www.barbican.org.uk
0845 <http://www.barbican.org.uk%0B%0B0845> 120 7515
More info at:
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/events.asp?EventID=114
-------------------------------------------------
Cuba Update is the news and information bulletin of the Cuba Solidarity
Campaign, UK. Reports in this bulletin are from various sources on the web
and may contain opinions and phrasing that do not reflect the views of the
Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
-------------------------------------------------
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Email: [email protected]
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk
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Labour news
Letters
Hands Off the People of Iran
We hope comrades in Ireland will make sure they attend the HOPI launches in
May:
Cork Wednesday May 9 19:30 Victoria Hotel, Patrick Street
Dublin Thursday May 10 - 19:30 Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square
Belfast Friday May 11 - 19:30 Queens University
In the UK, the campaign has ambitious plans for a press launch of a new
campaign pack in April, a 'teach-in' towards the end of June, and a full
conference later in the year.
"The genuine anti-imperialist struggles in Iran are being waged by workers,
teachers and students. The solidarity of the left and anti-war movement
should be with these forces, not those of the reactionary regime"
(see http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/666/iran.htm).
Visit the HOPI website at http://www.hopoi.org/ to read more about our work
and how you can get involved.
What¹s on?
What¹s James Larkin About?
Friday 20th [email protected] in the CYMSI CLUB Antrim Road Belfast-Life size
sculpture of James Larkin on display.
Guest speaker John Grey (Historian)
Admission £5.
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Vol. 4- No 12
Thursday 19th April 2007
E-mail newsletter of the
Irish Republican Socialist Paty
1) Editorial
2) The Republican Movement and Socialism 190*70
3) Cuba Update
4) Labour news
5) Letters
6) What¹s On
IRSP National Hunger Strike Commemoration -26th Anniversary
Sunday 20th May
Assemble 2pm
Rosemount Factory, Dery
March to Republican Socialist Plot, City Cemetery
All Welcome
Editorial
Quote
"We Irish Republicans believe that te Republic exists. At times it does
appear intangible but we believe that itis the legitimate government of
Ireland and that its authority resides with the Continity Army Council and
Executive. That is why we are often frustrated by otherswho claim to be
republican yet who do not believe this. There are some in Ireland today and
indeed within the Republican Movement itself that propose what is known as
the ³Broad Front². Their misleading suggestion is that there is strength in
unity. This s simply untrue. Any such proposal would obviously be a rain
on the resources of the Movement and would only be of assistance to those
who have notthe same faith as us. By weakening ourselves and rising others
up we endaner the All Ireland Republic. Can we risk all for a temporary
benefit? Furtermore some of these other groups actually claim that they are
the Republican Movement and that they represent its authority. For we true
Republicans to suggest such an alliance is heresy and should be avoided at
all costs."
(Speech at Republican Sinn Fein 207 Wexford Easter Commemoration)
Quote.
³The 1916 Rising against British rule in Ireland meant (a) the re-assertion
of the ight of the Irish people to national independence; (b) the re-birth
of Cristian idealism * the idea and © the emergence in the 20th century
of the nti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement which was to spread
world-wide²
(Speaking at the GPO, Dubln, on Easter Monday, April 9, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh,
President of Republican inn Fein,)
Quote
³Republican Sinn Féin represents the sole political alternative capable of
providing this, coming from a position of solid and unequivocal Irish
Republicanism. Other groups or organisations may attempt to hold this ground
but Republican Sinn Féin are the ony political organisation to uphold the
right of the Irish people, acting as a unit, to national independece, who
reject both partitionist states and their respective assemblies and with
policies capable of delivering a New Ireland for all of the Irish people.²
(Easter Sunday April 8 Republican Sinn Féin Vice President Des Dalton
speaking in Derry)
The above quotations illustrate the narrowness, arrogance and elitism of
Republican Sinn Fein. The Republic of Pearse and Connolly does not exist.
The IRSP do not recognise any legitimate Government resting in the
Continuity Army Council and Executive. No one need be frustrated by this.
Our allegiance ur cause is not to some intangible make believe but to the
Irish working clss. That is where our allegiance lies and to no other. Nor
do we ever attemt to equate either the 1916 Rising or the republican
struggle to the Christian religion. Not for us talk of Œhristian idealism¹,
Œheresy¹ nor mumbo jumbo about Œintagible¹ republics. We have seen
historically ow unquestioning faith can lead young men and women thrwing
their lives away in the hope of pradise. Too many of our young people have
bravely sacrificed their freedom or their lives in the armed struggle
without any clear political perspective to achieve that republic. We do not
claim to know all the answers but this we do know if he struggle is not
based on the bed rock of the working class and guided by a socialism based
on an objective analysis of material conditions then it is doomed to repeat
the failures of the past. Can Irish Republicans not learn from the past
failure?
1922 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1922> - 1923
<http://en.wikipedia.rg/wiki/1923> Civil War- Defet
1939-40 S Plan or "Sabotage Campaign" or "England Campaign"- Defeat
196-61 The Border Campaign or Operation Harvest- Defeat
1970-1997 ³The Toubles²-Defeat
Seamus Costello, our founder and former leading mmber of the Republican
Movement before it irrevocably splintered into differing traditions from
1969 onwards, advocated the Brod Front policy, so dismissed contemptuously
by RSF. Seamus having participated in the 56-61 armed campaign and watched
the so called leftist drift f the movement during the sixties had come to
the clear conclusion in the early seventies that the so called swing to the
left by what wa then the Officials was indeed a sham driven not by
revolutionary priciples but by reformist aspirations. He recognised the
genuine revolutioary aspirations of many rank and file volunteers within
the provisional movemnt but had enough experience of the elitism of former
comrades, who took uponthemselves the mantle of leadership of a non
existing Republic, to know tha such was not the way to liberation and
socialism. So he advocated the Broad front policy as a way of bring together
all anti-imperialist orces. Tragically Seamus was taken from us before he
had fully developed th strategy.
Today we operate in very different circumstance from when Seamus lived. We
believethat the participation of Sinn Fein (P) in running the northern
state far rom advancing republicanism shows the extent of the republican
defeat. Yes, Northern nationalism based on a sectarian headcount has
advanced but don¹t et anyone pretend that that is a victory for
Republicanism. It is no.
Talks are taking place between arious republicans as to the best way
forward. The IRSP will happily take art in such talks but we will not be
party to recasting a Provo-model Mrk Two. We will bring our class politics
to anysuch meetings, maintain a critical eye on proceds and will work for
genuine unity in action with others while coninuing to build up the party¹s
strength.
This dition of the Plough carries an historical article examining the
so-called swing to the left of the Repubican Movement during the sixties.
It exposes that myth. Base on the experiences of our own comrades during
the late sixties and early seventies, the RSM never, as such, had illusions
in either the Officials or the Provisionals as vehicles for revolutionary
change. Both of those organisations swung to the left to s up working
class discontent and replenish their membership. Then as circumstances
chaned drifted to the right.
The recent history of the Sinn Fein (P) ith its rapid accommodation to a
British impsed settlement may have surprised some republicans. It did not
surrise the IRSP. We have always held firmly o the view that the
centrality of the working class in the struggle was the only way that
impeialism could be defeated. True there were ties when this movement
slipped and departed from the revolutionary path. But no movement was ever
formed fully mature and knowng all the right moves to make. Experience is
hard earned and as our movment learns from its experience we are better
placed to plot the way forward for class politics.
During the 1980¹s the eadership of Sinn Fein posed as leftists, advocated
scialism and persuaded many international basd socialists that they were a
genuine revolutionary force. At the sametime these ³socialists² were
demonising our own movement. Those who were fooled then, need like us, to
learn the lessons of history. One shallow does not a summer make and saying
one is socialist does not make one so.
Read the following article by Jim Lane and beware those who would proclaim
their socialism only as a means to fool the working class.
The Republican Movement and Socialism
1950*70
[First published in a supplement to the Starry Plough (organ of the Irish
Republican Socialist Party) Dec. 1987. This edition was published in 1989.]
Much mythology attends developments within the Irish Republican Movement in
the 1960¹s and because it has been purveyed ad nauseam, it has been accepted
as fact by many, even by republicans. Basically, the mythology informs us
that the Republican Movement moved significantly towards revolutionary
Marxism after the failure of the Border Campaign. In a recent book by some
latter-day Workers¹ Party intellectuals, we are told that a
³radicalisationŠfollowed the defeat of the IRA¹s previous military campaign,
that of 1956*62², and that Cathal Goulding saw the engendering of
³social revolution in the Republic²
as his priority during the 1960s[1] <#_ftn1>
What follows is an attempt to set the record straight and demolish some of
the well-cherished misconceptions about the Œleft-wing drift¹ of that
decade. Hopefully, it will help place those who later formed the leadership
of the Workers¹ Party in an historical perspective.
Cold War
The late 1940s and the 1950s was a period of great hardship in the lives of
the working class and small farmers of Ireland. Mass unemployment gave rise
to poverty, hunger and emigration. It was also the era of the Cold War when
pulpit and press gave forth on the Œevils¹ of communism. Nationalist
parliamentary politicians studiously ignored the plight of the people. With
all attempts to build an Œindependent¹ Irish capitalism behind tariff
barriers failing, they now concerned themselves with promoting an
Anti-Partition campaign and with declaring the 26 Counties a republic. With
the IRA declaring that
³the aim of the army is simply to drive the invader from the soil of
Ireland² [2] <#_ftn2>
and Sinn Fein (recently reunited with the IRA) stating that it was not
³and never was a political party²[3] <#_ftn3> workers had no reason to
expect help from that quarter.
Indeed, when McCarthyite witch-hunts were being conducted by the Catholic
Standard newspaper, the IRA took care to distance itself from the communists
who had earlier been interned with its volunteers in the Curragh.
It charged, in fact, that the interning of communists with republicans was
part of a Fianna Fail plot to influence the IRA with materialist ideas!
An editorial in the United Irishman in 1949 stated:
³The IRA have as constantly opposed communism as they have opposed British
domination and have ever denied to communists and imperialists alike a voice
in their councils or a plank on their platformsŠeven if communists were
sincere in their advocacy of Irish independence, we could never accept their
Marxian creed. Communism is a foreign ideology just as unsuited to Irish
character and temperament as British imperialism² [4] <#_ftn4>
Later in that year the same paper explained the tenacity of Irish
republicans in quasi-religious terms.
³Every Irish leader², it stated, ³has asserted that in order to gain the
Republic we must maintain our spirituality as it is the very quality that
has kept our movement the shrine of our National heritage. Ireland¹s cause
is essentially one, which appeals to saints and martyrs.[5] <#_ftn5>
No room for materialistic communists here, even if they be advocates of
Irish self-determination.
Unemployment
By 1957, unemployed workers under the banner ŒEmigrate, Starve or Fight¹ had
begun to make their presence felt, despite witch-hunts and lack of support
from the unions. In Dublin, in an effort to bring their protest in to the
Dail chambers, they succeeded in getting one of their leaders, Jack Murphy,
elected. In Cork, Sinn Fein reaction was to order any of its members who
were involved in the Unemployed Protest Movement (UPM) to leave. It was
contended that the UPM was a Free State political organisation, because it
had a member in the Dail. The reaction of Sinn Feiners was generally to
leave the Republican Movement rather than the unemployed movement. One man
who defied the order was given a show-trial, as an example to others, and
promptly dismissed.
Even before the UPM became Œcontaminated¹ by using Leinster House as a
platform to air its grievances, Sinn Fein had taken a hostile attitude to it
in many areas. At one stage, a group of about 40 unemployed, locked out of
Cork¹s Carpenter¹s Hall due to a mistake in booking arrangements, had
proceeded down the street, expecting to be facilitated in the nearby Sinn
Fein hall. They were refused, however, because local Sinn Fein leaders
claimed that they were communist inspired.
When a member of Sinn Fein, Norman Letchford, wrote and published a
pamphlet, ³Lives, Loves and Liberties - The Heresies of a Protestant
Republican,² he was dismissed ostensibly for not having sought permission to
publish. In fact, he had submitted a manuscript to his local Comhairle
Ceanntair. At his unsuccessful appeal hearing, he was condemned for
criticising the role of the Catholic clergy during the Great Famine.
To back up his dismissal, members were later informed that he was a
communist infiltrator and a former member of the Connolly Association. The
trials and tribulations of the Irish working class found little place in the
considerations of most Irish republicans in the 1950s; they were too busy
being Œsaints and martyrs¹.
This then is the Republican Movement in which the future Œleft-wingers¹ cut
their political teeth. This is the movement that they joined and the
movement whose policies they never fundamentally disagreed with until the
failure of the border campaign necessitated an internal rethink. Even while
they were supposedly undergoing a process of radicalisation in the prisons,
the bourgeois politics frequently shone through. Tomas MacGiolla, for
example, while in prison in late 1950s, spent some time defending Franco¹s
Spain against the verbal attacks of his more enlightened comrades.
New Leadership
Following the failure of the 1956*62 armed campaign in the 6 Counties, the
leadership of the Republican Movement was deposed and a new leadership
installed. Cathal Goulding assumed the leadership of the IRA and Tomas
MacGiolla took over as acting president of Sinn Fein. Goulding¹s involvement
with the IRA reached back to the 1940s and he was held in high esteem by his
peers. MacGiolla came to Sinn Fein in the early 1950s from the
Anti-Partition League. From a Free State background, he was a nephew of T.P.
Gill an Irish parliamentary member at Westminister. He had served on the Ard
Comhairle (National Executive) previously in 1956. With the ending of the
campaign, Goulding and MacGiolla were released from Mountjoy Jail on 20
April 1962. Sean Garland, also destined to play a major role in the coming
years, was released from Belfast Jail in July.
These men, along with some others, have been credited with leading the
Republican Movement to socialism. It is held that the failure of the armed
struggle to win appreciable support brought about a realisation by
republicans of the need to involve themselves in agitational activity
associated with the struggle of the exploited. We are told, primarily by the
Workers¹ Party, that this process, which began within the prisons, led to
the adoption of revolutionary socialism by the Republican Movement in the
early to mid 1960s.
What is never examined, however, is the reason why republicans decided to
involve themselves in agitational activity. It had to do with amassing
support that they hoped would rebuild the Republican Movement and hold solid
when they again launched an armed campaign. It had nothing to do with an
ideological change in their thinking with regard to the working class. It
was simply a change in tactics. Offering little or no threat to the
capitalist system, it found favour with most republicans.
This tactic of republican involvement in social protest in order to win
support for their petit bourgeois anti-partition objectives needs to be
understood by all those who strive for socialism and national liberation.
The working class is not there to be used, and workers have shown on
countless occasions that they resent being used and are pretty astute at
identifying and rejecting users. That is precisely why Sinn Fein today has
made little inroads in electoral terms in southern Ireland. Despite its
recent interest in social issues, its priority, indeed only real objective,
remains the ending of partition.
That there was no fundamental change in the Republican Movement¹s
ideological stand was evidenced later in 1962 when MacGiolla gave his
presidential address at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis. He declared that:
³In so far as the communist menace is a battle for men¹s minds, we should
undoubtedly be playing a leading part in the fight against it, as we should
be in the fight against materialism of every blend. Our greatest weapon in
the fight against all material philosophies is our essential spiritual
nature.²[6] <#_ftn6>
He then went on to outline a six point programme to
³fight communism or any other social or political ill of our day.²
Sinn Fein presidential addresses represent the view of the entire movement.
Obviously, spiritual Ireland was alive and well and entrenched in the
Republican Movement. The United Irishman commented:
The president of Sinn Fein has dealt with our place in the struggle against
communism in his presidential address. It is the only honourable and
reasonable contribution which we as a small Christian nation can make
towards the progress of civilisation and the cause of peace.[7] <#_ftn7>
The movement¹s anti-communism was later given further expression in an
article reviewing the position of communism in Europe:
³Poland has recently thrown off Soviet domination, has drawn away from
doctrinaire communism and has adopted a more conservative systemŠThe
Hungarian revolution has resulted in severe setback for communism in that
countryŠWith so much internal trouble and unrest, these countries in Eastern
Europe are a danger to nobody except themselves.²[8] <#_ftn8>
What should be noted here is that it was not the style of Œcommunism¹ that
existed in these countries that was being attacked, it was communism itself.
The Republican Movement clearly wished for the installation of bourgeois
democracy in Eastern Europe rather than a real system of socialist
democracy. Years later, when asked by a journalist if ³the policy adopted in
1962/3 was explicitly a socialist revolutionary policy², Cathal Goulding
replied that it was.[9] <#_ftn9>
Despite the movement¹s conservatism, a small group of people formerly
associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), the Connolly
Association and the Irish Workers¹ Party, found its way into the Republican
Movement or into its front organisations. They were in time to exert a major
influence on the thinking of some of the republican leadership. That they
could survive in such an anti-communist movement only goes to show the
extent of their reformism.[10] <#_ftn10>
In-Betweenism
In pursuance of their policy of agitation, republicans began to involve
themselves in the everyday struggles of the workers and small farmers. IRA
volunteers were instructed to join trade unions, but by 1965 it was admitted
Sinn Fein itself had failed to develop an active organisational structure.
There was much dissatisfaction with Sinn Fein and the IRA wished its role to
be confined to publicity and election work.
Whatever about the IRA curbing Sinn Fein, its president, Tomas MacGiolla,
was still given free rein to deliberate on communism:
³CommunismŠas it has manifested itself in many countriesŠis not an ideology
which would commend itself to the Irish people²[11] <#_ftn11>
The ambiguity of this statement is apparent. Was he issuing a blanket
condemnation of communism? Or was he merely condemning the distorted form of
communism that manifest itself in the Œsocialist¹ countries?
Coupled with the ritual condemnation of capitalism, the Republican Movement,
in attacking communism, seemed, like the Catholic Church, to want something
suspended between both. In reality, again like the Church, they wanted
capitalism with something of a social conscience. They sought economic
in-betweenism and frequently used James Connolly as a basis for their
utopian concept. The economic policy promoted by Sinn Fein was immeasurably
removed from any stand James Connolly ever took. It was nothing more than a
bizarre mixture of re-hashed Proudhonism and Social Credit theories.
In 1965, what MacGiolla described as the Œessential spiritual nature¹ of the
Republican Movement was greatly in evidence. The movement spearheaded
opposition to the use of English in the Roman Catholic Mass. In a front page
leading article, entitled ŒDemonstrations in Churches?¹ the United Irishman
announced:
A chapter is likely to be added to the history of republicanism and Roman
Catholic church relations when the change to the vernacular in the Mass
comes into forceŠfor the first time since the coming of St. Patrick to
Ireland the English language is not only to be given a place an official
status in the very heart of Church affairs, the Mass, but also, over most of
our country, a position of complete dominance. This, in the eyes of many, is
the consummation of the conquest and the end of hopes for spiritual and
intellectual independence, the first facet of republicanism. [12] <#_ftn12>
In the event, good sense took over and except for some more articles in
subsequent months, we were spared the demonstrations. Strange, however, to
find such Catholic-nationalist sentiments in an allegedly socialist
revolutionary organisation.
Going into 1966 with MacGiolla defending a free enterprise economy and
suggesting the co-operative movement as an alternative ³to either,
capitalism or communism²,[13] <#_ftn13> it was understandable that Ruairi
O¹Bradaigh could state emphatically during the Westminster election campaign
that the Republican Movement was not socialist.[14] <#_ftn14> At the Easter
Commemoration in Cork City that year, MacGiolla launched into an attack on
communism emphasising that it was an Œalien ideology¹.
In May 1966, an editorial in the United Irishman, contemplating who
republicans should support in the Free State presidential election, said of
candidate T.F. O¹Higgins, that he had ³very little to condemn him
personally.² Supporting fascism as a member of the Blueshirts in the 1930s
was not to be held against him. Such liberalism!
By 1967, as Goulding revealed in an interview in 1970, the Republican
Movement was dormant:
It wasn¹t active in any political sense or even in a revolutionary sense.
Membership was falling off. People had gone away. Units of the IRA and the
cumainn of Sinn Fein had become almost non-existent. We felt that something
dynamic was needed or the movement was going to break up and splinter into
pieces. We called a meeting of the Republican Army¹s local leadership at the
end of August 1967...at that conference of 1967 we started on a Friday night
and finished on a Sunday eveningŠthey suddenly realised that they had no
movement at all. They only thought they had a movement. Out of this
conference there came a number of recommendations. The first was that we
should openly declare for a Socialist Republic. That was now the objective
of the Republican Movement: to establish a Socialist Republic as envisaged
by Connolly and in keeping with the sentiments of the Proclamation of
1916.[15] <#_ftn15>
A Native Product
With a moribund movement, badly in need of a shot in the arm, the tattered
remnants of the leadership had got together for one weekend and come up with
the good old Socialist Republic. The Republican Movement clearly thought it
worthwhile to cash in on socialism¹s new-found popularity in the late 1960s,
so it jumped on the bandwagon. By November, Sinn Fein had tailed the IRA and
amended the party constitution to read that its objective was a Socialist
Republic. The army had decided the matter and the party had followed. Truly
indicative of a socialist vanguard party!
However, the Republican Movement now had that Œsomething dynamic¹.
³Socialism has nothing to do with either atheism or totalitarianism, as
is evident from a superficial reading of Connolly², MacGiolla told the
faithful in January 1969. He continued:
Neither is it a philosophy which must be imported. It is part of the
Republican tradition since the founding of the United Irishmen, was deeply
rooted among the Fenians, and was the driving force behind the 1916
rebellion.[16] <#_ftn16>
A few months later, socialism became even more acceptable when he claimed
that
³the revolutionary movements of the past allŠ recognised that socialism was
a native growth on Irish soil.²[17] <#_ftn17>
This nonsense hardly deserves comment, but it helps to show the reader the
level of mumbo-jumbo prevalent in the Republican Movement at the time.
Mythology has us believe that it was guided by advanced Marxists. But when
the heady days of armed conflict arrived, people like MacGiolla lost their
heads altogether. The notorious anti-communist, MacGiolla, in an interview
in July 1970, informed us that if things happened as he hoped, he would be
the Fidel Castro of Ireland.
³Yes!² he said, ³we have the same revolutionary style and objective. Mind
you, not that I have any personal ambitions to be an Irish Castro. As a man
I regard him as overemotional.²[18] <#_ftn18> I wonder did Castro, like ŒIce
Cool¹ MacGiolla, realise that socialism was a native growth of Irish soil?
Reformists
This then was the Republican Movement of the 1960s. It was a movement that
never strayed from reformism. It indulged in revolutionary posturing and
phrasemongery when such activities were popular, but it never genuinely
attempted to forge a Leninist-type revolutionary Marxist party. This is not
to say that there were not some genuine Marxists within the movement,
struggling for a way forward.[19] <#_ftn19> What it does mean is that the
Workers¹ Party is nothing less than the natural, and expected, product of
policies formulated by the so-called Œleft-wingers¹ of the 1960s. They had
always dismissed real revolutionary politics; it was only a matter of time
before they openly rejected revolutionary methods.
Today¹s Workers¹ Party, true to its creators design, does not seek the
overthrow of capitalism and the building of a socialist society. Rather, it
seeks simply to Œameliorate¹ the lot of Irish workers by working within the
system. It is nothing more than a second Labour Party in Ireland. What is
truly needed is not another Labour Party, but a Marxist party that makes the
achievement of social revolution its inviolable objective. Only with such a
party will an Irish Workers¹ Republic be built ( Jim Lane, Cork,
1989.)
Cuba Update 16 April, 2007
1.Barclays asks Cuban outfits to close accounts
2.Austrian bank tells Cuban-born customer to go elsewhere
3.Cuba condemns Posada possible release
4.Cuban music legends to play London
1. Barclays asks Cuban outfits to close accounts
Move follows scandal over Hilton Hotels
16 April 2007
Duncan Campbell
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian
Barclays Bank has told the London branches of two Cuban organisations to
take their accounts elsewhere in what is seen as the latest example of
pressure exerted by the United States on British companies to enforce its
embargo of the island. MPs are to discuss the controversial embargo at a
special meeting in the House of Commons next month.
The long-standing accounts held by Havana International Bank and Cubanacan,
a state-owned travel organisation, are understood to be healthy. But they
have been told to take their accounts elsewhere. A spokesman for Barclays
said: ³We operate in a number of jurisdictions around the world and that
requires careful monitoring to ensure compliance with different
regulations.²
A spokesman for the Cuban embassy in London said: ³We are aware of the
intensification of US pressure in various countries in order to make them
comply with the regulations of the blockade imposed on Cuba. These pressures
include the banking and financial system.²
The Hilton hotel group was at the centre of a row this year when their Oslo
hotel cancelled a Cuban trade delegation booking. After the Guardian
published details of a similar ban operated by the group in Europe, the
company said it could not ask staff to break British law forbidding
discrimination on the grounds of nationality.
The Hilton Hotels Corporation in London wrote to the government, stating:
³As a US-based company, we face a legal dilemma, with a strict ban on
trading with Cuba imposed by the US government².
Ian Carter, chief executive of Hilton International, is due to attend next
month¹s meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on Cuba to discuss the
embargo.
Colin Burgon MP, a member of the group, said: ³This is totally unnecessary.
We have on the statute book robust legislation that protects UK citizens and
visitors from discrimination.²
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=1044
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2057886,00.html
-------------------------------------------------
2. Austrian bank tells Cuban-born customer to go elsewhere
Blockade is being applied to all Cuba nationals abroad
14 April 2007
VIENNA, Austria - An Austrian bank recently bought by a US-led consortium
acknowledged Friday that it told a Cuban-born client to take her business
elsewhere and suggested that Washington¹s ban on commerce with Havana was
behind the decision.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/internationa...414p2g00m0in014 (http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/international/europe/news/20070414p2g00m0in014)
000c.html
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=1059
-------------------------------------------------
3. Cuba condemns Posada possible release
Main topic of conversation in the island
13 April 2007
Havana, Apr 15 (Prensa Latina) Cubans¹ condemnation of Luis Posada
Carriles¹s release and President Fidel Castro¹s denunciations of the US
government support for the terrorist were the main topics of conversation in
the Caribbean Island this week.
Posada Carriles¹s possible release on bail in Texas was condemned by
millions of Cubans, who demand that the terrorist be tried in the United
States or extradited to Venezuela.
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/news.asp?ItemID=1057
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7...-8C1B-D945E2BCD (http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE30455E1-80C3-4528-8C1B-D945E2BCD)
D3B%7D)=EN
<http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE30455E1-80C3-4528-8C1B-D945E2BC
DD3B%7D)&language=EN
<http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BE30455E1-80C3-4528-8C1B-D945E2BC
DD3B%7D)&language=EN> >
-------------------------------------------------
4. Cuban legends to play London
La Linea Festival at the Barbican
Eliades Ochoa
Friday 20 April,7.30pm
and
Israel López ŒCachao¹ + Omar Puente & Robert Mitchell
Sunday 29 April, 7.30pm
Barbican Cente, London
www.barbican.org.uk
0845 <http://www.barbican.org.uk%0B%0B0845> 120 7515
More info at:
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/events.asp?EventID=114
-------------------------------------------------
Cuba Update is the news and information bulletin of the Cuba Solidarity
Campaign, UK. Reports in this bulletin are from various sources on the web
and may contain opinions and phrasing that do not reflect the views of the
Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
-------------------------------------------------
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Labour news
Letters
Hands Off the People of Iran
We hope comrades in Ireland will make sure they attend the HOPI launches in
May:
Cork Wednesday May 9 19:30 Victoria Hotel, Patrick Street
Dublin Thursday May 10 - 19:30 Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square
Belfast Friday May 11 - 19:30 Queens University
In the UK, the campaign has ambitious plans for a press launch of a new
campaign pack in April, a 'teach-in' towards the end of June, and a full
conference later in the year.
"The genuine anti-imperialist struggles in Iran are being waged by workers,
teachers and students. The solidarity of the left and anti-war movement
should be with these forces, not those of the reactionary regime"
(see http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/666/iran.htm).
Visit the HOPI website at http://www.hopoi.org/ to read more about our work
and how you can get involved.
What¹s on?
What¹s James Larkin About?
Friday 20th [email protected] in the CYMSI CLUB Antrim Road Belfast-Life size
sculpture of James Larkin on display.
Guest speaker John Grey (Historian)
Admission £5.
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