UPHOLD, DEFEND AND ADVANCE THE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY,
CIVIL RIGHTS, DEVELOPMENT AND WELFARE OF THE IRISH PEOPLE
Message of Solidarity to Ard Fheis of the 32CSM
on its 20th Anniversary in Ireland on November 4, 2017
By Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples´ Struggle
Dear Comrades and Friends,
We, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, wish to express our most heartfelt greetings of solidarity to the 32CSM on the occasion of its 20th anniversary. We have always admired your heroism , sacrifices and victories in many struggles to uphold, defend and advance the national sovereignty of the Irish people. We condemn the conviction of some of your members for various IRA-related offences down through the years.
We appreciate and support your position and activities regarding human rights issues, the homeless crisis, drug problem and other social problems and the significant role that you play in the anti-interment struggle and in the proclamation project and your invoolvement in the Creggan Community Centre in Derry.
When the Good Friday Agreement was signed, your organization was correct in pointing out how this so called peace process entrenches British rule in the north of Ireland by not dealing with the key issue of Irish sovereignty.
We agree with you that the Irish people is a united community that has the right to determine their own destiny without British interference politically, socially and economically and that there can be no peace so long as occupation persists because occupation in and of itself is violent.
The issue of British rule is not just an issue of direct occupation but is also an issue of the traitor bourgeoisie in Ireland collaborating with the British to impose brutal direct capitalist exploitation while excluding Irish people from the political and economic life of the country.
We have the highest respect for the 32CSM for mobilizing the masses to oppose British occupation which created a racist sectarian Orange state in the north and an underdeveloped south which is being exploited by the European Union.
In the absence of a normal police force the 32CSM has correctly taken as duty to deal with the drug problem through a mix of confrontation with dealers who are in the pay of the British state and are using heroin as a form of chemical warfare and who are used as a proxy force to execute political activists like Alan and Vinnie Ryan and others.
It is wise of your organization to create alternatives to drugs through the work of community centres such as the Creggan Community Centre. Like you, we recognise that to get rid of the dealers of death and the violence that drugs bring, drugs need to be treated as a social issue and drug addiction should be dealt with as a health issue.
The homeless crisis in Ireland is a direct result of the sectarian state set up in the north which discriminates against Irish people in terms of housing, employment and other social conditions
as well as a violation of the 1916 proclamation and the 1919 Dail which clearly states that the Irish people not only have the right to political freedom but also economic freedom from capitalist exploitation since the Irish people must also control the wealth of the nation and means of production.
In the hands of the British ruling class housing as well as other basic rights like food, health care and national development are commodities to be bought and sold. As long as the capitalist exploiting class controls these resources, they will be used for private profiteering instead of being put in at the service of the Irish nation.
The 32CSM has taken it upon itself to highlight through protest and action such as the Apollo squat and the Moore Street Project. Homelessness and poverty are not an accident but rather a creation by design of the capitalist neo-liberal policy that puts private interests first as opposed to public welfare.
Through grassroots groups like the Creggan Community Centre those youth who are at risk of extreme poverty and homelessness are mobilized to sort out their own problems. The community takes social responsibility by solving these problems through mass mobilization and self-reliance.
Politically, the 32CSM is the key to highlighting the internment of activists by the British state.
Many of these activists are imprisoned without due process and without any semblance of justice.
The issue of internment is part of the greater issue of political policing in Ireland, the so-called “anti-terror laws” with the use of secret courts and secret evidence and the basic criminalization of the right to be political.
By mobilizing the community and highlighting the issue, you are effectively exposing the hypocrisy of the British state which claims human rights around the world but can arrest people simply on the word of state agents and apparatus with no transparency or accountability. These laws and attempts to criminalize political activists go hand in hand with the political occupation which deals with the issue of political dissent through force and policing.
In terms of economic exploitation in the south your organization was front and centre in the water tax protest which saw the vast majority of the Irish people resist this IMPF austerity measure. The mass demonstration made the imposition of this tax impossible. Thus putting forward the Republican line that sovereignty is not just civil rights but includes the right to control over the resources of the nation.
You are correct and appropriate in declaring about Brexit that England has the right to secede from the EU but has no right to impose this on the Irish people and that for England to exercise this right they must allow Ireland the same sovereignty. On this basis you have been able to mobilize people and the results show that the people in the north voted against Brexit on this basis. Yet Brexit is still enforced. In the Irish communities in the north of Ireland this vote was 80 percent and higher.
Currently the 32CSM is engaged in the Proclamation Project to create a space where all Republicans regardless of affiliation can discuss the political problems that the Irish people are facing and come up with solutions to strengthen the political unity of all anti- imperialists in Ireland and put forward a modern political program that serves the interests of all Republicans.
We stand in solidarity with the Irish people in fighting for their national sovereignty, their civil rights, control of their natural resources and social wealth and social welfare. In this regard, we support the 32CSM in adopting positions on issues and carrying out campaigns and activities for the fundamental rights and welfare of the Irish people.###
