Letters

Support From Corsica

Not only do they betray their ideals, but also those who have supported them for all these years, sometimes risking their lives to achieve their goals. Giving away your ideals to enter a government that you always fought in the past is mean and pathetic.

I am a Catholic and a socialist (but not Marxist), and I think that the unspoken support given by those traitors to the EC, multinationals and capitalism is another betrayal. I have not heard Gerry Adams pronounce the word “socialism” for ages!

For all those reasons and many more, I give you and all Republicans who stand firm on their principles my full support. Corsica has always been occupied in its history, and our right to speak our language denied.

Corsican nationalists are however divided, and I can give you only one advice: all true Republicans should get together and forget their small differences, for what is at stake is the future of Ireland.

Tiocfaidh ár Lá
A CORSICAN SUPPORTER
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Stormont Agreement Opposed

This colonial parliament into which former Republicans have entered can only bring more oppression and murder and will continue to do what it has always done, serve British interests in Ireland.

It is not so long ago spokespersons for the Provisionals were adamant in refuting charges they would settle for a Six-County internal settlement. Yet, Mr Adams and company are now truly part and parcel of this British-controlled with superficial cross-Border, meaningless functions, whose participating members are exposed as nothing more than native imperialists and/or “Green Tories”. Even with ‘nationalist’ involvement the Unionist Veto will continue to dictate the political direction of Stormont.

Those erstwhile Republicans, those place-hunters, who have become civil servants on England’s payroll will, of necessity, have to protect this illegal Orange statelet and will oppress those who are prepared to challenge British misrule in Ireland.

Wolfe Tone had declared clearly and unequivocally: “Break the connection with England!” Therefore, the political maneuverings and posturing of neither O’Connell, Collins, de Valera, nor Gerry Adams will have brought about that cherished result for which so many true lovers of Ireland have suffered and died.

The Irish Freedom Committee/Cumann na Saoirse will continue to support a full British withdrawal, which will then facilitate conditions for “real peace” and “true justice” within a 32-County, united and sovereign Irish Republic. Our continuing commitment to families of Republican political prisoners, who will remain incarcerated following release of Provisionals, will be evidenced in our assistance to CABHAIR in Dublin.

An Phoblacht Abú.
JOSEPH T DILLON
Acting National Chairperson
Irish Freedom Committee USA
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Harassment At Ard-Fheis

A comparison to the Nazi era in Germany is not too strong a description of what is happening now, as Republicans who wish to exercise their democratic rights to meet and discuss a political agenda, debating issues that not only affect the people of Ireland but world-wide issues, poverty, drug abuse, housing, education, social and economic concerns.

During the Nazi wise to power minority groups were intimidated, imprisoned and even shot to enable Hitler to sell his party’s lies to the electorate, 90% who voted “ya” and 10% who voted “nien”, how right the minority 10% proved to be. Goebbels stated if you are going to tell a lie to the people make sure it is a big one.

True Republicans may be viewed as small in number now but when the lie is exposed as it surely will be the electorate will look to alternative views.

Republican Sinn Féin has a political agenda to fill that position when the time comes and is ready, willing and able to lead to a more just and democratic united Ireland.
SÉAMUS WALSH
London
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Irish News/Provo Alliance

In criticising “extremes” of social intolerance and sectarian hatred in north-east Ireland the editorial made several points which were at best speculative and at worst based on the “Castle Catholic” mentality, ie anti-Republican whilst minimising and grossly understating the pervasive influence on our social and political problems of wider unionism and its imperial master in Westminster.

Firstly, the Irish News editorial’s assertion that “ . . . unionists from almost everywhere except Portadown are appalled by the actions carried out in their name . . .” is, I believe, demonstrably untrue. For instance, the bitterly sectarian and fascist rantings at the DUP and UKUP rallies throughout the Six Counties in the last year or so, UUP intransigence and the rise of the extreme right within that party even after successfully securing the return of Stormont, unionist failure to offer anything other than the most begrudging and limited condemnation of loyalist atrocities, and indeed in all the media including TV news and other programmes unionists who are supposedly not of the “diehard” variety have practically all supported the Orange Order’s insistence on marching on the Garvaghy Road and through the other contentious areas. I don’t think the above-mentioned point in this regard will wash with the vast majority of Irish nationalists or indeed with any objective observers.

Then, presumably not wanting to confine its criticism to reactionary unionism and the Portadown fascists, the Irish News editorial took the opportunity of castigating non-conforming Republicans. Worse still, it attempted to draw a ridiculous parallel by stating that, for example, the stance of Republican Sinn Féin represents “. . . the mirror image of the Drumcree mob”. Regarding this, I and others will take great exception. Republican Sinn Féin is undoubtedly the true and undiluted voice of the Republican Movement, remaining faithful as it has, through thick and thin to the core principles of the Sinn Féin constitution of 1917 when that historic organisation first embraced this worthy political philosophy and adopted a specifically Republican manifesto.

The Irish News, as usual, has aligned itself with the Establishment forces, but now with the Provisionals as well, in trying to further marginalise and rubbish those of us who continue to demand and politically campaign for the re-establishment of the All-Ireland Republic, the unlawful suppression of which has seen armed struggle and untold misery in every decade since. Among the Provisionals’ many rewards for abandoning the 32-County Republic, it would appear, is being accepted into the “good books” of newspapers such as the Irish News.

In the year when the bicentenary of the 1798 Rebellion is being marked by exhibitions, commemorations, rallies, re-enactments and in the newspapers, many seem curiously reluctant to remind the public that uppermost among the great Wolfe Tone’s guiding principles was “ . . . to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils”. The poignancy of this statement was hardly ever clearer than during the process which saw the Provisionals now finally accept and take part in the administration of both usurper states in Ireland which continue to suppress the Republic to which they claim allegiance. The contradiction could hardly be more striking!

Finally, in reference to the Irish News’ use of the term “dissident”; whilst this word might conceivably be used appropriately in referring to individuals who have of late resigned from the Provisionals, and other reformist groupings, it certainly does not in any way apply to Republican Sinn Féin which stands by the principles that former comrades sadly betrayed at various stages since Partition.

However, regardless of the Irish News’ and other attempts to marginalise and bad-mouth our political organisation, Republican Sinn Féin will continue to strive, persuade and campaign for the realisation of Wolfe Tone’s noble goals, and history will record that in 1998 while former comrades either crumbled under State pressure or went constitutional, Republican Sinn Féin has and will remain firmly resolute in its adherence to the All-Ireland Republic. We have, after all, a clear and unbroken lineage back to those gallant men and women who struggled and died for its independence from 1916 to 1923.

No other State, No other law.
MARTIN O’DOWD
Belfast
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Cowardly Bombers Strike at Iraqi people

In the buzz-words of the New World Order it would seem that any other country refusing to be ‘brought into compliance’ will now be ‘degraded’. It is hard to tell if Iraq actually possesses any chemical or biological weapons but, if so, they were not used in the Gulf War in which 200,000 Iraqis were killed, and which showed that Iraq was a country unable to defend itself let alone pose a threat to world peace.

Since that time, eight years ago, hundreds of UNSCOM experts (or spies) backed up by reconnaissance planes and satellites, have scoured the entire country searching for such weapons, while half a million men, women and children have died of malnutrition-related illnesses due to UN sanctions. If this is not degradation enough, what is?

In the immediate aftermath of yet another capitulation to Israel, which has defied 27 UN directives in relation to Palestine, and which also possesses weapons of mass destruction, the US and Britain unleash aggression against Iraq without a mandate from the UN Security Council, and against the UN Charter. This follows in recent attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan.

In their respective ann-ouncements of the attack, both Clinton and Blair gave an insight into their own cynical thinking. Clinton said, “The credibility of US power will be destroyed if we do not act.” Blair stated, “I wish them [the RAF] well in what we will be asking of them” — that is, to inflict death and destruction. While uncertain about Iraq we know for sure who does possess weapons of mass destruction — the US and Britain. The US is still the only State ever to have used nuclear weapons, while Britain boasted of its own destructive capacity through its Trident missiles and Tornado bombers. Isn’t it about time this starkly exposed hypocrite, Tony ‘Decommission’ Blair, did some decommissioning of his own?

Instead, he participates in a cowardly bomb attack on the Iraqi people and provides cover for his partner-in-crime, the degraded international gangster, Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, oil prices — recently in the doldrums begin to rise. At least the Oil Barons have something to smile about.
P MCDONNELL
Liverpool
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