tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20924605248335855822024-02-07T02:39:18.124+00:00Socialist Democracy BlogA socialist perspective on Irish politics and society.SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-11571783990224783672011-06-14T19:14:00.002+00:002011-06-14T19:14:19.739+00:00testtext of postSD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-74074860777924435432009-03-17T14:13:00.002+00:002009-03-17T14:17:21.134+00:00IMPORTANT NOTICE - WEBSITE RETURNS<strong>The transfer of our domain to a new host is now complete. Our full website can be viewed again at its normal address - </strong><a href="http://www.socialistdemocracy.org/"><strong>www.socialistdemocracy.org</strong></a><strong>. We apologise to our readers for the disruption of the last two weeks.</strong>SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-26209429827557596092009-03-14T11:58:00.002+00:002009-03-14T12:01:38.242+00:00Armed action in Ireland<strong>Sinn Fein's Michael Collins moment<br /><br />12/5/09 </strong><br /><br /><strong>John McAnulty</strong><br /><br />There has been a unlted response by all the Irish and British political parties to the killing of British soldiers in Antrim and the later killing of a policeman in Craigavon. They all say that:<br /><br />Republican militarists have nothing to offer.<br /><br />The militarists have no support<br /><br />The political process in the North of Ireland is secure.<br /><br />Only one of these assertions is true.<br /><br />It is true that the militarists offer absolutely no way forward for Irish workers. It is not true to assert that they have no support nor that the political process is secure. In fact, it is precisely because the political settlement is failing that the militarists are gaining in support.<br />It is highly unlikely that any outside the most frantic of Sinn Fein supporters believed that that the end result of the peace process would be a united Ireland. What they all believed was that that the Northern statelet could be reformed to become a more equal society.<br /><br />Right from the beginning that proved too much. Democratic rights were mutated by the Good Friday Agreement into supposedly equal sectarian and communal rights. It was a settlement that didn't give enough to Britain's Unionist base and it was tweaked towards Unionist majority rule in the St. Andrews agreement.<br /><br />During St. Andrews the DUP agreed to devolve policing and justice and Sinn Fein were promised sops around a centre recording the hunger strike and a unified sport stadium and an Irish language act.<br /><br />It proved impossible to get the DUP administration to honor these promises and a Sinn Fein work to rule blocking the functioning of the executive failed. The British gave them substantial backhanders to compensate them. More recently, alongside the decision to block any full investigation of state terror came an offer of £12 000 to the relatives of those killed. Unionist outcry led to the withdrawal of the offer. Even the backhanders have dried up.<br /><br />On the economic front the shootings led the Sinn Fein and DUP leaders to cancel an investment tour of the USA - one of many such trips, all failures, serving to underline the absence of any real economic strategy for the North of Ireland.<br /><br />This has not led to a mass nationalist rejection of the Northern settlement. The Irish capitalists will support any imperialist plan. The power of the Catholic Church has greatly increased under the sectarian setup. The middle class wallow in sectarian privilege marked by 'equality' positions in public service earmarked for one confessional group or the other. Sinn Fein itself has a backbone of 'community workers' paid by the state.<br /><br />A minority of republicans have rejected Sinn Fein and the partitionist settlement, aiming to revive a military campaign against British rule. They have been completely ineffective because of the demoralisation caused by decades of militarism and state repression, because of their fragmented and divided movement and because of the absence of support. Above all, the total absence of any political program has fatally handicapped them.<br /><br />They are still not large, but they have now seen the exodus of the last of the militarists holding on in the Provos. More generally there is a growing revulsion at the aroma of corruption around Sinn Fein. A growing number of working class youth are unable to see the new world that the Shinners promised. . The result of that growth is that state intelligence has degraded. They still know the old hands, but have only partial penetration of the new cells. There is also the growth of a new infrastructure of supporters willing to provide money, intelligence, safe houses and weapons dumps.<br /><br />For all that their opponents are right when they say that republican militarism offers no way forward. In the tradition of pure physical force republicanism, RIRA boast that they have no political organisation.<br /><br />Without a thought they include pizza delivery men as targets, apparently unaware of the extent to which the policy of the 'soft target' demoralised their own supporters and besmirched the name of republicanism in the past.<br /><br />They have no explanation, other than betrayal, for the abysmal failure of decades of military struggle and the relatively easy absorption of their compatriots into the structure of colonial rule. Above all they seem completely unaware that the southern capitalists are the most frantic supporters of the settlement and the chief mechanism through which the political dissolution of the Provos was obtained.<br /><br />Yet within the narrow grounds of the physical force tradition, the republicans have a clear strategy. Their military capacity represents nothing in relation to British military might, but they believe that even a low level of activity will be enough to bring down the new Stormont regime.<br /><br />A major target is Sinn Fein. The republicans calculate that the pressures of their campaign will collapse the organisation and win supporters to the RIRA. They also calculate that it will act as a recruiting sergeant, bringing disaffected nationalist youth into their ranks.<br /><br />Politically their belief that armed action can bring down the northern statelet makes little sense. It is true that the Good Friday Agreement has been decaying since its inception, but it has been decaying to the right, into a more naked and reactionary expression of imperialist interest, driven by increasing unionist reaction and republican capitulation. Militarism can only play a traditional role of stirring up and accelerating the political process - in this case speeding up a drive to the right.<br /><br />A sign of that drive to the right came quickly, with what one reporter called 'Martin McGuinness's 'Michael Collins moment'. (Collins was a leading figure in the Irish war of Independence who then led the Free State repression of the republicans). McGuinness called the republicans 'traitors to the island of Ireland'. He called on his supporters to inform on them and to support state repression.<br /><br />He claimed that the new dispensation guaranteed political progress, despite being unable to show any such progress other than the presence of themselves and their supporters within the state apparatus.<br /><br />Such was the determination of Sinn Fein to prove their worth that they did not stop with assurances to the British and DUP. A special meeting with representatives of the loyalist paramilitaries brought them in on the act. Apparently the fact that they retain a full arsenal of weapons aimed at Catholic workers is no longer a cause for censure.<br /><br />Sinn Fein have little choice. They themselves are targets of the republicans. Any suggestion that the good Friday process failed would lead to the collapse of their organisation. They must support instant state repression in the hope that it quickly defeats the militarists. In any case any hesitation on their part might well lead to their expulsion from the administration. British Tory leader David Cameron has already indicated that he wants to replace the current forced coalition of Sinn Fein and DUP with a 'voluntary coalition' - in other words, unionist majority rule.<br /><br />So already we have a step-change to the right. The Irish peace process has left behind any pretence that jaw-jaw will be enough to sustain it. There is to be war-war in the form of state repression. This new dispensation will be spearheaded by Sinn Fein and will enjoy widespread public support.<br /><br />In the short term the militarists have strengthened the imperialist settlement. In the long run there are still many contradictions. Sinn Fein will be isolated from significant sections of the nationalist working class and will continue to decay. The state will want to target the repression so that the republicans are isolated, but this will be difficult to do given the intelligence deficit. The DUP leadership has welcomed the Provos role in spearheading the reaction, but that does not mean they will reward them by supporting any reform. At the grassroots the reaction of many members of the DUP to the attacks will be to look for Sinn Fein's expulsion from the administration.<br /><br />The Irish peace process will continue its march to the right. A military campaign offers no solution, but then neither does the position of their opponents, which offers frantic support to the British and denounces any political criticism of the settlement as a form of terrorism.<br /><br />Trade union demonstrations on the days following the deaths illustrated this perfectly. They went well beyond protests about the shooting of the two workers or more general protests about militarism to hysterical calls by TU leader Peter Bunting for unconditional support for the sectarian status quo. In an even more extreme development Patricia McKeown of unison claimed that the trade unions would act as 'civic society' in coordination with the state to make the repression successful. The widespread hysteria from all sides is not aimed at the relative handful of militarists. The disquiet about the corrupt society that has been brought into existence is much wider and a consistent theme of the supporters of the current settlement has been to demonise the opposition and attempt to convince workers that the only alternative to supporting the status quo is a sectarian bloodbath. It is this unconditional support for an imperialist settlement, rather than a criticism of militarism that makes this Sinn Fein’s Michael Collins moment and makes the organisation an obstacle to the resolution of the Irish question.<br /><br />The settlement in the North of Ireland is not a democratic settlement. It hardly pretends any longer to be one, depending on popular rejection of a failed militarism and on unconditional support for the state from the formerly anti-imperialist opposition. That's not enough to prevent its eventual collapse. The former radicals bay their hatred of the militarists, but by blocking any political critique they are telling the disaffected and marginalised that only physical force remains as a response.<br /><br />It is for socialists and democrats to prove the former radicals wrong and build a political opposition.SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-84504004688913902262009-03-10T11:30:00.000+00:002009-03-10T11:31:23.934+00:00Republicans attack British Army base in AntrimFollowing hard on the heels of the controversy over the deployment of the SRR, though probably not related directly to it, came a republican attack on a British Army base in Antrim that killed two soldiers. This was the first British Army fatalities in the north since 1997, and the first time that republicans have inflicted military casualties. Claims of responsibility for this attack came from both the “Real IRA” and “ONH”. <br /><br />This is latest in a growing number of attacks carried out by republicans, which have ranged from shootings to car booby trap bombs, landmines to the large 250lb-plus car bomb only last month. There is no doubt that the level of activity of republicans is growing and that they are picking up some degree of support, particularly in the most marginalised nationalist areas. The main reason for the growth of republican groups is the increasingly obvious failure Sinn Fein to make any advances on even the most minimal nationalist demands never mind a republican agenda. <br /><br />There is also the ongoing decay of Sinn Fein from an activist party with grassroots support to one staffed by full timers who are dependent on patronage that flows from Stormont. In the most marginalised nationalist areas Sinn Fein are increasingly seen as corrupt and out of touch. A particular touchstone for discontent is the issue of anti-social behaviour. It has gotten much worse in recent years - serving to highlight both Sinn Fein’s diminishing authority and failure to improve policing. This has provided the opportunity for republicans to build a degree of support through vigilantism. It is this general social and political decay that has enabled republicans to build up a base to sustain a low level military campaign.<br /><br />This in no way poses a challenge to the British state, but it does put pressure on Sinn Fein as they face demands from the British and Unionists to support more repressive measures against republicans. It the wake of the Antrim attack Sinn Fein are being urged to give their full support to the Chief Constable and his decision to deploy special forces.<br /><br />If republican groups have any form of strategy it is to provoke more a repressive response from the British state that they hope will boost their own support and further discredit Sinn Fein. It is a variation of the old guerrilla concept than repression will inevitably provoke revolt. However, in most cases this has proved to be an illusion. More repression has just meant more repression and defeat. The Republicans also have a flawed assessment the Provisional campaign – putting its failure down to the development of a political programme rather than its adherence to armed struggle. The reality was that the armed struggle was defeated because of its own inherent limitations. Once it was defeated the republican political programme went down with. The critical point is that the Provisionals political defeat followed their military defeat, not the other way round as the republicans claim. Despite their criticism of Provisional movement they have actually adopted its strategy and are bound to repeat its failure.SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-80308574281402090012009-03-10T08:03:00.000+00:002009-03-10T08:05:10.802+00:00Deployment of special forces exposes Policing BoardThe revelation that the PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde has requested support from<br />Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) to help gather intelligence has highlighted once again the limitations of police accountability in the north. This was clearly illustrated in the manner the information was made public. Only hours after the Policing Board conducted its monthly question and answer session with the chief constable, in which the activities of republican groups had been raised, the local BBC evening news broke the story on the deployment of special forces. That Hugh Orde chose not to inform the Policing Board about such a significant and politically controversial development is a clear indication that the leadership of the security forces feel no obligation towards it. Indeed, the likely leaking of story by security sources reveals some degree of contempt. <br /><br />The deployment and the manner in which it was reported are particularly embarrassing for Sinn Fein and the SDLP, who have sold the peace process to a large extent on police reform and the creation of new policing structures. Orde’s request for special forces support exposes the limitations of that reform. It demonstrates publicly that the security forces in the north are not wholly accountable to local political representatives. The SSR is not under the scrutiny or the control of the Policing Board. Nor would would this unit of the British Army be accoutable to any future justice minister from the devolved administration at Stormont. Like the MI5 officers based at its regional headquarters in Holywood, County Down, this unit answers only to military commanders and ministers back in London.<br /><br />Predictably Sinn Fein and the SDLP registered their complaints over this. The SDLP issued a statement claiming that the decision to deploy the unity raised “the issue of who is in control". Martin McGuinness said army special forces were a "major threat”; that the decision to deploy them had "shaken his confidence" in the chief constable; and that he had raised the matter with Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen. (The British and Irish governments subsequently indicated their full support for the deployment.) However, the anger from the nationalist parties derives more from the pricking of the illusions they had built up around the Policing Board than the substance of the decision to deploy special forces. The reality is that the Policing Board does not, never had and never will have a scrutiny role over matters, such as the activities of republican groups, that are deemed to fall within realm of “national security”. This was set out clearly in the St Andrews Agreement that set the terms for the restoration of the Assembly and Executive, and Sinn Fein’s participation in the Policing Board. <br /><br />To a degree the deployment of special forces is largely symbolic. Despite being officially withdrawn in 1997 they never stopped operating in the north. Indeed, there are indications that the SRR have been targeting republicans for more than two years. Last October the Irish News revealed how a special unit was already operating against republicans. It was reported that nine members of a special forces unit carried out surveillance on three suspects arrested in connection with a mortar bomb find near Lurgan in March 2007. At that time the Secretary of State issued public interest immunity (PII) certificates banning the soldiers or their unit being identified. In October 2008 the soldiers gave evidence in the subsequent trial via satellite from Afghanistan and Iraq were they were stationed. Others units, such as the successor to the notorious Force Research Unit (Fru) which was revealed to have been involved in more than a dozen murders, also continue to operate. Now known as the Joint Support Group, is thought to have around 50 undercover soldiers in the north carrying out human intelligence operations handling informers. <br /><br />The SRR itself absorbed the 14th Intelligence Company ('The Det'), a special plainclothes surveillance unit created in 1973, specifically for operations in the north. Though only in existence since 2005, the SSR has already been linked to a number of high profile incidents. It has been reported that that SRR personnel were involved in the intelligence collection effort that lead to the shooting of a Brazilian man on the London underground in July 2005. Later that that year Iraqi police arrested two SRR personnel in Basra who were acting suspiciously - it was reported that they were disguised in Arab dress and that weapons and explosives were found in their car.<br /><br />The SRR is also thought to be active in Afghanistan, assisting the SAS in seeking out Taliban leadership targets. The fact that their presence in north has now been publicly acknowledged suggests an intensification of the crackdown on republicans.SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-80455298663005018202009-03-05T16:06:00.004+00:002009-03-05T16:12:33.353+00:00IMPORTANT NOTICE - TEMPORARY WEBSITE<strong>A version of our website can be viewed at the following address.</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><a href="http://members.lycos.co.uk/socialistdemocracy"><strong>http://members.lycos.co.uk/socialistdemocracy</strong></a><strong> </strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Our most recent articles will be posted here until our full website is restored. We again apologise for the disruption. </strong>SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-73096597615692022222009-03-04T11:16:00.000+00:002009-03-04T11:18:11.999+00:00IMPORTANT NOTICE - WEBSITE UNAVAILABLE<strong>Our website is currently unavailable as it is in the process of being transferred to another host. For the time being we will be using the blog to publish our most recent articles. We apologise to our readers for this disruption.</strong>SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-31801681509923531722009-03-04T11:13:00.000+00:002009-03-04T11:16:27.828+00:00A Better, Fairer Way?<strong>ICTU’s 10-point plan to capitulation<br /><br />John McAnulty<br /><br />3 March 2009</strong><br /><br />The vote for strike action presents workers with something of a dilemma.<br /><br />On the one hand workers want to protest the pensions levy, the wage cuts, the cuts in public service and the contrasting reward of the crimes, thefts and bailouts among the golden circle.<br /><br />On the other hand the 10-point plan drawn up by ICTU, summing up the aims of strike action, is a call for social solidarity with the crooks who sold us out and a demand that ICTU be allowed on to the committee that will bring in the levy!<br /><br />Let's read the fine print. ICTU’s ten-point plan calls for:<br /><br /><strong>1. Protecting Jobs & Tackling Unemployment</strong><br />Workers to be guaranteed 80% of income and retraining - a slogan rendered meaningless in the context of support for slashing the wages of workers rather than guaranteeing them.<br /><br /><strong>2. The Banking System & the Public Interest</strong><br />The bureaucracy suggest nationalization or recapitalization, ignoring the fact that these are the methods currently used by capital to hand over public funds to the bankers and ignoring the absolute corruption of the public bodies supposed to supervise the banks.<br /><br /><strong>3. Competitiveness.</strong> <br />Cut energy costs - again a suggestion that the government can be persuaded to support the workers when the whole aim is to plunder them.<br /><br /><strong>4. The Pay Agreement</strong><br />Follow the pay agreement - The bureaucracy give the game away here. They are not asking government and employers to honour the terms of the national pay agreement, but simply to follow 'inability to pay mechanisms' built into all these agreements that always meant that only workers were bound by them. ICTU are signalling their willingness to police the credit crunch on behalf of the bosses.<br /> <br /><strong>5. Fairness & Taxation</strong><br /> We have arrived at the core of the bureaucracy's plan - the workers will pay for the crisis - but the capitalists must pay their fair share! This is by far the wordiest section of the document for the simple reason that the whole history of the 'Celtic Tiger' demonstrates the impossibility of getting capital to pay its fair share - in fact the common strategy of the bureaucracy and the government was never to ask the multinationals to pay any significant taxes!<br /><br />Even if many of the obstacles to taxation were to be overcome, the plain fact is that the majority of capitalist wealth is of course held as capital. Getting the capitalists to pay their fair share (in reality the full bill) would mean expropriation of capital - an idea the bureaucracy will run a mile from!<br /><br /><strong>6. Restoring Consumer Confidence</strong><br />This is an ‘if only’ section. If only the government and bosses would stick to the pay agreement the workers would have some money and would spend more. If only this all-out attack on the working class wasn't an attack! Yet another plea to the bosses to call back the bureaucracy to their side!<br /><br /><strong>7. The Public Service ‘Pension Levy’</strong><br />ICTU give absolute assurances that the working class will pay. Again they call on capital to pay its fair share and to allow them back into social partnership and to police the offensive they have already agreed in January's framework document.<br /><br /><strong>8. Pensions<br /></strong>ICTU call for a pension protection fund - having just indicated their acceptance of a totally bogus pension levy and agreed a deal on Waterford glass that guarantees nothing for the workers. It's OK for the government and bosses to rob Peter, but they must promise to save Paul!<br /><br /><strong>9. Employment Rights Legislation</strong><br />The government that has just torn up the partnership agreement is asked to enforce its clauses - even though exploitation of migrant labour and bureaucratic collaboration by the union leaders has been a consistent feature of the Celtic Tiger.<br /><br /><br /><strong>10. National Recovery Bond</strong><br />There is a better fairer way. The government shouldn't force us to hand over our money - we should volunteer it ourselves.<br /><br />Two unstated elements of the ‘better, fairer’ way<br /><br />The 10-point plan is in reality a 12-point plan. The central, unstated points are:<br /><br /><strong>Social solidarity with the government, bosses and bankers.</strong><br /><br /><strong>The workers must pay for the crisis</strong> (as long as there is some tawdry cloak of fairness).<br /><br /><br />The workers have no choice about activity. They must vote for strike action no matter what way some union ballots are worded. What they must not do is go into the strike as political cannon fodder for the bureaucracy. They must put forward their own plan, diametrically opposed to that of the bureaucracy, denouncing the new superpartnership of social solidarity and making it clear that the working class won’t pay for the crisis.<br /><br />Even low levels of campaign on this basis would begin to build rank and file structures. Campaigning around the strike call and building local strike committees on this basis would lay the foundation for a national worker’s movement and prevent demoralisation and despair when the union leaderships finally implement the betrayal that they spell out so clearly in a ‘better, fairer way’.SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-40643942748747894982008-09-22T15:01:00.003+00:002008-09-22T15:05:49.570+00:00Damning report on Historical Enquiries Team<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgKwWOhgQkSGJXH8TqNmZVvhi28x689LF4PYQEDcKluYexyZxsNsiRi7O4TdmKfdx5NLMlYivRlNZbKAti7gbTsTSRd8C7unsCkgpITXDGA0RgWa4MwDNLWl7XobVHQyvg927ELrG2xt0/s1600-h/HET.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5248861622878231234" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgKwWOhgQkSGJXH8TqNmZVvhi28x689LF4PYQEDcKluYexyZxsNsiRi7O4TdmKfdx5NLMlYivRlNZbKAti7gbTsTSRd8C7unsCkgpITXDGA0RgWa4MwDNLWl7XobVHQyvg927ELrG2xt0/s320/HET.jpg" border="0" /></a>One of the areas where the peace process has most obviously failed has been in the various attempts to tackle the legacy of the "Troubles". A number of mechanisms and institutions, such as the Victims Commission, the Office of the Police Ombudsman and various ongoing public inquiries, have been established in order to deal with unresolved issues. However, none of them have produced any resolutions, only more discord and dispute.<br /><div><br />An insight into why this is the case came this week in a leaked report on another of these bodies – the Historical Enquiries Team (HET). The HET is a special police unit which was set in 2005 up by the PSNI chief constable to re-examine murders committed during the Troubles. A report by a University of Ulster academic, who was given unprecedented access to the team for two years, has called now called its independence and effectiveness into question. </div><div><br />The main point of the report by Dr Patricia Lundy is that that the HET has been compromised by the presence of so many former RUC and Special Branch officers in senior positions. This is despite assurances given at the time of the establishment of the HET that it would recruit the majority of detectives from outside Northern Ireland and would limit the involvement of former members of the RUC, particularly Special Branch. </div><div><br />According to Dr Lundy the HET is over reliant on former RUC officers. "It appears that ‘the old guard’ play a key role in the management and access to intelligence and perform a censoring role in respect of disclosure," she writes. "All aspects of intelligence are managed by former RUC and Special Branch officers". At the time of the research, the Intelligence Unit (IU) was staffed by 18 former RUC and Special Branch officers. </div><div><br />In November 2007 the HET had 166 staff, including 67 former RUC officers. Two former RUC Special Branch officers and a former British army soldier hold key senior positions within the HET. It is the view of Dr Lundy’s that such "strategic positioning" of former RUC officers, and particularly those with a Special Branch background, "not only undermines actual but perceived independence".</div><br /><div>One PSNI officer who had been seconded to the HET was Detective Chief Inspector Philip Marshall, who was later accused of "deliberate and calculated deception" during the Omagh bomb trial. The British army was found to have regularly failed to pass on the names of former soldiers identified in controversial killings to HET investigators. HET requests to the British army were "invariably returned with a negative trace ", the report said. Only one fifth of senior RUC detectives who originally investigated Troubles-related killings had "positively engaged" with the HET.</div><div><br />While the unit was reported to be investigating more than 1,000 cases during the two-year study, Dr Lundy said the figure actually referred to the number of cases that had ‘gone into the system’. "It is my opinion that a very creative use of language has been employed to describe a process which in the majority of cases is essentially a ‘desktop review’," she writes.<br />It is also Dr Lundy’s assessment that "political considerations" have impacted HET’s decision-making process. Her report states: "HET are acutely aware of the extreme sensitivity of the cases under review and their likely political ramifications" and that there has been a "reluctance on the part of senior management to make difficult decisions and deliver perceived unpopular findings."</div><br /><div>This report is damning of the HET, but the criticisms it makes are applicable to all the other resolution efforts and to the peace process more broadly. The problem is that the past is very much the present, and that any attempt to uncover the truth has the potential to call into question the credentials of those who are holding up the current settlement. This is true for both the unionists and Sinn Fein, but most of all for the British who want to perpetuate the myth that they are above the conflict. They cannot allow efforts to resolve the past to be truly independent and run the risk of producing the "unpopular findings" that would serve to undermine the settlement. </div><br /><div>A good example of this came in the same week as the leaked report on the HET, when it was revealed on BBC’s Panorama that Britain’s electronic intelligence agency GCHQ recorded mobile phone exchanges between the Omagh bombers on the day of the attack. This information was neither used to prevent the attack or to aid the investigation into those who carried it out. The victims’ relatives rightly ask why, and reiterate their call for a public inquiry. But the British aren’t going to agree to anything that could expose their complicity in the atrocity. It really shows up the fundamental rottenness of the peace process that its preservation is dependent on the denial of truth and justice. </div>SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-79212395257113871242008-09-13T11:37:00.003+00:002008-09-16T09:03:42.183+00:00Searching for Plan B<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid_awtdUSEKPx-SNfQQPXwckCpqI2w5gEyQV9GKu-WPchLSyQC0Ewxj1OidOxZ04MT-VKbouA5yeR8zxwefKJjONTI4yKEcah0ASOj7OThyphenhyphen-YycarwZPmwpYEhGoss3vjMxs5WEuL-9dI/s1600-h/Stormont.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245471102908003266" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 249px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 142px" height="171" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid_awtdUSEKPx-SNfQQPXwckCpqI2w5gEyQV9GKu-WPchLSyQC0Ewxj1OidOxZ04MT-VKbouA5yeR8zxwefKJjONTI4yKEcah0ASOj7OThyphenhyphen-YycarwZPmwpYEhGoss3vjMxs5WEuL-9dI/s320/Stormont.jpg" width="320" border="0" /></a>The growing sense of disillusionment over the peace process among the republican grassroots found expression in this week’s Andersonstown News. This took the form of a letter from one B. Maguire. In the opening paragraph he describes himself as a “life long republican” who “voted for the Good Friday Agreement and supported the Sinn Fein strategy”. But now he is “completely disillusioned and angry”.<br /><br />He goes on make a number of complaints about the settlement, and to pose a series of questions to the Sinn Fein leadership. His primary complaint is over the existence of a DUP veto. He notes that the DUP have used this to block any movement on a sports stadium, the Irish Language Act and the devolution of policing and justice powers. The fact the DUP “can veto anything thing they don’t like” raises for him the obvious question of what republicans can ever get from the power sharing executive.<br /><br />B Maguire also notes a change in the Sinn Fein rhetoric on the St Andrews Agreement, which has gone from assertions that it included provisions for an Irish Language Act to a claim that an act will be in place at some undefined date in the future because it is somehow inevitable. For him “the leadership have lost their revolutionary politics for the politics of appeasement”. He cites as an example of this Belfast Mayor Tom Hartley’s opposition to the City Council hosting a home coming parade for the RIR on the basis of his personal opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than the role that regiment, and the British army as a whole, have played in Ireland.<br /><br />B Maguire rounds off by stating that it is obvious to him that “the unionists are not up to power sharing. Stormont has failed. It will not work”. Rather than continue to prop up Stormont he urges Sinn Fein “walk away now and go to the Plan B” (which he believes to be joint sovereignty). His letter concludes with a plea for Gerry Adams to “give us answers”.<br /><br />While many of the points in this letter are familiar, and have been made by others, it is now significant that they are being echoed by mainstream republicans who had up until recently supported the peace process. The fact that such people are starting to fall away is an indicator of the declining credibility of the Sinn Fein leadership.<br /><br />The letter from B Maguire prompted a quick response from Sinn Fein, with a reply of sorts from Gerry Adams appearing in the following edition of the Andersonstown News. Much of this was a restatement of the equality provisions within the settlement, though with view examples of them operating. Adams claims that Sinn Fein had an agreement with the British on an Irish Language Act, but that this was now being blocked by the DUP. He concedes that the DUP does indeed have a veto, but that this is countered by Sinn Fein’s own veto, though they “have little need” to use it because of their “positive agenda”.<br /><br />Adams says that though unionists may not be up for power sharing, Sinn Fein had a responsibility the make the political institutions work. For him “being strategic, planning for the future, keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the prize is the only way forward.” Adams concludes with the claim that the only way to move unionism is to build “a stronger Sinn Fein”.<br /><br />This reply is completely disingenuous, ignoring the major points of the original letter, and making claims for the settlement that are completely baseless. The fact is that Sinn Fein signed up to a settlement that has a built in unionist veto. While formally nationalists do have a veto, to use it on any substantial issue would bring the whole edifice crashing down. There is no pressure on the DUP to concede anything, certainly not from the British and Irish governments. An assembly were Sinn Fein had a hundred per cent of the nationalist seats would make no difference. If anything it would hasten the collapse of the settlement as no unionist would be prepared to sit under a Sinn Fein first minister. Its stability depends on unionists having the upper hand and nationalists accepting that.<br /><br />In his letter B Maguire displayed some naivety in his belief in the existence of a Plan B for joint authority. This does not exist - Sinn Fein aren’t going to walk away. Their only strategy is to hang on to their ministerial seats at all costs and hope that things will get better. If there is a Plan B it is the return to majority rule that has been proposed recently by SDLP leader!SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-61945585301296587702008-09-10T15:35:00.002+00:002008-09-10T15:39:29.636+00:00SDLP leader calls for end to power sharing<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244417701353545858" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 218px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 140px" height="214" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGu7_LWhl555DMEnxSzBaPGNNCiWmB2tVvgf4-DIXcjAi7UTpt6crffCOp1KFpu6Hn8NaDPMZImzo1tfcqIpi3sCCCqyh-uMszz5V-QLdJtxEiEYNaiVKY5iQbyi3HXeJqT0gBu3xwcY/s320/Mark+Durkan.jpg" width="241" border="0" />The call from the SDLP leader for an end of power sharing arrangements at Stormont is another indication of how far the minimal reforms associated contained the Good Friday Agreement have been eroded. Ten years ago power sharing Government was hailed at the centrepiece of the political settlement. For the twenty-five prior to that the SDLP had championed power sharing as a means of resolving the conflict in the north. Now we have the leader of that party calling for it to be abandoned.<br /><div></div><br /><div>This was the message that Mark Durkan delivered at the British Irish Association conference at New College, Oxford over the weekend. He called for compulsory power-sharing between nationalists and unionists at Stormont to be scrapped, and the rules requiring cross community support for legislation to be removed. For him these mechanisms were the "ugly scaffolding needed during the construction of the new edifice." The assumption is that such mechanisms, which were supposedly designed to protect nationalists from the abuse of power by unionists, are no longer needed in this new era because the peace process has been so successful in promoting reconciliation and stability. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>However, any examination of the current political situation exposes such assumption to be baseless. The north is more sectarian and polarised than ever, and the political institutions increasingly unstable. The Executive has not met for months due to disagreements between Sinn Fein and the DUP. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>It is this current instability and deadlock, rather than optimistic for the future, that has prompted Durkan’s comments. This is revealed in his appeal for nationalists "to reflect on the dangers of the decision-making protections acting as decision making prevention on more and more important issues". It is recognition that a power sharing government between nationalists and unionists is unworkable. The corollary of this position, and what is being implied by Durkan’s proposed changes to the Agreement, is that nationalist parties give up their right to be in government in order to have a functioning government at all. The fig leaf for this abandonment of power sharing is his call for a 'strong and robust' bill of rights to protect minorities. What this amounts to is an acceptance of a return to unionist majority rule for the sake of stability. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Mark Durkan’s speech is a signal of the desperation of nationalists for the settlement to work no matter how diminished. It is also a reflection of the elitist approach of the SDLP which looks to the law as a counter to sectarianism. But such faith in the law is misplaced. It completely ignores the fact that there was a formal equality before the law under the old Stormont regime that existed alongside rampant discrimination. For unionists the point of being in power is to have the power to discriminate. This is also why the unionists are totally against a Bill of Rights. Sinn Fein strongly attacked Durkan’s comments, but their own strategy, of hanging unto their places in the Executive at all costs, isn’t anymore successful success. Even the minimal gestures in the St Andrew’s Agreement - an Irish Language Act and the devolution of policing and justice powers – are being blocked by the DUP. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Sinn Fein has been reduced to issuing empty threats to bring down the Executive - threats which are immediately withdrawn when challenged. If Sinn Fein wants the Executive to function it will have to subordinate itself the the DUP agenda. Whether nationalists are in of out of the executive unionist will still be ion a dominant position. The comments by Mark Durkan indicate that a section of nationalist population is prepared to accept this as the price of stability. However, is this any different to what existed during the 50 years of the old Stormont regime? </div>SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-80457941348033347022008-09-08T14:42:00.013+00:002011-06-08T19:46:34.056+00:00Days Like These No9<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxtWcDCPrSli5eDfHUHwg0HNRehHwkoWbW4fXNlZ08OhKTNDQv2r17leX47mP88tKQGBHxAoleKv2taQ1bWMF6fcqFuEzfObO1mzWTxZ8EWlsCOIvYXyGTCgcu_4BYX9zGgs880vaxgOw/s1600-h/Under+an+African+tree.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243662487465945874" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxtWcDCPrSli5eDfHUHwg0HNRehHwkoWbW4fXNlZ08OhKTNDQv2r17leX47mP88tKQGBHxAoleKv2taQ1bWMF6fcqFuEzfObO1mzWTxZ8EWlsCOIvYXyGTCgcu_4BYX9zGgs880vaxgOw/s400/Under+an+African+tree.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 187px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 308px;" /></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Who Are The Irish What Do They Want?<br />
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<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">By Guest Bolger Gerry Fitzpatrick</span><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;">We stand at the beginning of a new brutal era as the world’s Empire’s - old and new fight it out for control of the world’s resources. The invasions of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region><st1:place>Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> show that the pretence about ‘bringing democracy’ to other counties is well and truly over. <st1:country-region><st1:place>Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region><st1:place>Georgia</st1:place></st1:country-region> have the privilege of joining <st1:country-region><st1:place>Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region><st1:place>South Korea</st1:place></st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region><st1:place>Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region> as client regimes no matter how its people’s are ruled. And what are our interests?<span style="font-size: 0px;"> </span>That’s not just a question for the conservative President of France it is a question for us all and it is not just because a government has again lost a crucial European vote. (It is also a question for a certain young man sitting under a tree in <st1:place>Africa</st1:place>. We all know him and you should keep him in mind as I will return to him later.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-size: 0px;"></span><span style="font-size: 0px;"></span>Some time ago our comrade - <span style="font-size: 0px;"></span>Dr Terry Eagleton wrote in a rather mournful way about how the new generation of Irish students had appeared to have forgotten <st1:country-region><st1:place>Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s own radical history in their headlong dash to be modern. And it worth quoting his words from 1996:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 2cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 2cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 78%;">Modernization in Ireland today means a host of precious things: pluralism secularization, flexible notions of sovereignty [but it can also mean] being shame faced and sarcastic about your historical culture...so as to as to leap, suitably streamlined and amnesiac, into the heat of the European order characterized by racism, structural unemployment, urban barbarism, military campaigns against the Third World and abandonment of Irish small farmers and working class to a brutally neo-liberal polity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 2cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 78%;"><span style="font-size: 0px;"></span>(Eagleton, ‘The Ideology of Irish Studies’</span><span style="font-size: 78%;">)</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 2cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-size: 85%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 2cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 2cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 130%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;">It’s odd then that Revisionists and Tories often joke about how the Irish see themselves as being the most oppressed people in the world and they are probably right about that, for it has consequences and effects that are worthwhile.<span style="font-size: 0px;"> </span>We aspire to invert imperial chauvinism and that is a struggle in itself which, as we’ve seen - we don’t always succeed, but that did not and should not stop us. <span style="font-size: 0px;"></span>Because we share a kinship with those who have been brutally occupied and forced into starvation and emigration. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 130%;">Let’s return to the youngman sitting under a tree in <st1:place>Africa</st1:place>. He’s there to do the simple and the good – build a school, install a water pump, repair a road, put together a transport link – fight hunger and disease. We shouldn’t romanticise him – he is after all probably there on a gap year and I’m sure he wishes sometimes that he never agreed to travel and work in a place where the great powers cut a swathe to their one interest. But he will stay on - for the rewards will far outweigh the discomfort and the doubts. It is a mission and a duty – political quasi-religious in nature but democratic and just nonetheless.<span style="font-size: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 0px;"></span>And that is whether we like it or not. Our comrade Dr Eagleton may have despaired of the generation that appeared ready to forget that the cause of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region> is labour. <span style="font-size: 0px;"></span>But our relation to <st1:place>Europe</st1:place> and the world doesn’t end with a government giving taxes to support NGO’s and their faltering programmes. The truth is that countless thousands have gone abroad to labour against hunger, disease and oppression. The cause of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region> is labour - it is not ‘national’ or practiced by nationalists - it is international. For we stand for and with the starving, the oppressed and against imperial occupation. We have said ‘NO’ twice to those in power who think that an economy works best when regulated in favour of the fantastically rich and which pays farmers not to grow food while the cost of meagre rations is forced skyward. These too are crimes against humanity which we must do all we can to fight and work against. </span></div>northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-34106650132158954362008-09-04T21:16:00.005+00:002008-09-05T15:16:28.289+00:00They haven’t gone away y’know<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242278440732292450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 291px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 177px" height="301" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1xrxiS-kQmO26tKetkkI7atQVPnPWpNHk2_7RkNFFtSFTi8llK4FLbw5Jlc988sY5XghJgx_XKhzSrEtIsdxl8eEYYw3lLkQGDdhJNKqFobiCYVXdyEJeYHuT4vYAdpMoV92hEQl8mrs/s400/ira.jpg" width="314" border="0" /><strong>‘Nationalist family’ assemble for one last roundup<br /></strong><br />The Independent monitoring committee is a creature of the British government. It has no independent investigation structures but simply takes government intelligence and presents it in a way most useful to the government. Its report concluded: "The mechanism which they (the army council) have chosen to bring the armed conflict to a complete end has been the standing down of the structures which engaged in the armed campaign and the conscious decision to allow the army council to fall into disuse. By taking these steps PIRA has completely relinquished the leadership and other structures appropriate to a time of armed conflict."<br /><br />This is a very carefully worded statement. It does not say that there is no army council or no IRA, but essentially argues that they no longer exist in the context of any threat to British structures and that the IRA have done everything that the DUP can expect that equates to surrender and enough to allow Peter Robinson to sign up to the transfer of policing powers<br /><br />Gordon Brown made this clear when he declared “It is now time for all the political parties to work together to complete the final stages of the peace process - to complete the devolution of policing and justice” Secretary of state Shaun Woodward argued that “This ground-breaking report by the IMC makes clear that the Army Council is now redundant”. Dermot Aherne, Fianna Fail Justice Minister, said that “I hope that the political parties in the north can now complete the process of devolution by assuming responsibility for policing and justice powers.” Paula Dobrainsky, US special envoy declared; “This report underscores the transformation that has taken place in today's Northern Ireland, and signals that all parties should move forward to create a fully-functioning political environment.”<br /><br />From a distance it all looks very reassuring. All the components of a ‘Nationalist family’ a virtual body imagined by Gerry Adams, comprising Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and the SDLP and stretching out to encompass the Bush White house and even the British – all the forces that were to face down unionist reaction and bring modernity to Ireland – they are all together again to defend Sinn Fein and face down the DUP.<br /><br />As in the days of yore, Sinn Fein has support. But it is worth looking more closely. The support, as in the past, is designed to allow capitulation. The problem with republicanism is that it offered an armed resistance to imperialism. The solution is that they embrace their oppressors. In the process the problem is defined. The problem is not the bigotry of the unionists, nor the British endorsement of unionist reaction. The problem is the IRA. There is not the slightest hint that, if the DUP refuse to play ball, the British will apply sanctions to them. If the republicans have not done enough today then they must do more in the coming days.<br /><br />A few questions are in order.<br /><br />Peter Robinson has already said that 95% disbandment is not enough. Surely the simplest solution would be 100% disbandment?<br /><br />If the maximum humiliation of Sinn Fein is demanded now will that be the end of humiliation or will it be a routine, unending part of administration in the North?<br /><br />Will the Shinners get all the elements they were supposed to have already as part of the St. Andrews deal or is the reward of disbandment only a limited, truncated version?<br /><br />With another victory under their belt, will the DUP then turn the other cheek and aim to tone down the drive for sectarian domination?<br /><br />To ask these questions is to answer them. Nationalists can have a minor and subordinate role in a sectarian society while supporting a government of some of the most reactionary political forces in Europe. Their role will be to endlessly capitulate to sectarian reaction and in the process lend stability to a process fundamentally unstable. The endemic crises and collapses of the peace process are not minor glitches but fundamental flaws in an imperialist settlement doomed to eventual collapsenorthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-33160532328616983992008-08-28T19:48:00.009+00:002008-09-05T15:15:09.718+00:00The mouse that roared<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-wdHe21yn9MBfBUwo3oR0zxBjcTmZb0LHS5f_ALyDeUF8BHClUoederIXBWV1zc61PRJa2z6tmBkBi-gWRz8d5n_EXYX-iaOcM6Qwhp_j_gd9gIGqVWmcNQM7RayHqJHghMm_FgOmGU/s1600-h/OCaolainCaoimhghin24.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239658798698003890" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 178px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 172px" height="248" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-wdHe21yn9MBfBUwo3oR0zxBjcTmZb0LHS5f_ALyDeUF8BHClUoederIXBWV1zc61PRJa2z6tmBkBi-gWRz8d5n_EXYX-iaOcM6Qwhp_j_gd9gIGqVWmcNQM7RayHqJHghMm_FgOmGU/s400/OCaolainCaoimhghin24.jpg" width="200" border="0" /></a><b><span lang="EN-US">The Sinn Fein rebellion that wasn't.</span></b><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Rush into a meeting. Shout loudly "long live the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Workers</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Republic</st1:placetype></st1:place>"! Rush into another meeting and explain calmly that you can provide stability in a colonial administration. Now increase the frequency of the meetings. At some point speaking out of both sides of your mouth at once will prove too great a strain and a stammer will develop.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Sinn Fein have been speaking out of both sides of their mouth for over a decade. It is hardly surprising if TD Caoimhghin O'Caolin stumbled and a message for his terminally confused and demoralised members declaring Sinn Fein's willingness to collapse the Stormont assembly leaked into the outside world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">A stunned silence was followed by bursts of hilarity from the SDLP and then contempt, followed by increased pressure to come to heel from the DUP.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In fact what O'Caolin was demanding was far from clear. It was far short of any immediate demand, more a plea for the DUP to give them something and a pathetic threat to go to the British and complain.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The last time that the Shinners pulled this trick was when they threatened not to nominate a deputy first minister and prevent Robinson taking office. They ended up giving way on the issue of a Sinn Fein justice minister.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The mechanism is simple enough. Having signed up to a colonial and sectarian deal, tied by a thousand bribes and implied threats to London and Dublin, Sinn Fein have no choice but to make the deal look good no matter what it throws up. The task of the DUP is to prove to their supporters that they hold the whip hand and have conceded nothing to the Fenians. They can play hard ball in the knowledge that, in a decade of negotiation, the British have never wavered in seeing the unionist base as the guarantee of their presence in Ireland and have never felt it necessary to withdraw support no matter how extreme their demands. We have to remember that the present problem is about concessions to Sinn Fein in the <st1:place st="on">St. Andrews</st1:place> agreement that they are trying desperately to have implemented – some of the sweeteners are on the table for the third time, constantly appearing and disappearing like carrots before a dazed donkey.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Today we have Mary Lou McDonald repudiating the O'Caolin comments and Alex Maskey pleading for "engagement" while Robinson lays down the law, demanding a massive climbdown at the upcoming executive meeting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The only fatality in the whole process is Sinn Fein's credibility. The sooner that goes and a genuine political opposition forms, the better.<o:p></o:p></span></p>northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-7250170935829150392008-08-21T15:44:00.005+00:002008-08-21T15:53:51.397+00:00Discord over Omagh anniversary<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVNXvQ6hVxuh-f08kZPsFhi9FL26urS6omSumPBNCDbi7XIXhEC2Hkka4F4dQR6iWHgTEra9nlO5CDlt-OhzV0XfJ9KUhNXPjIVdQmI8X4l2PPP5Zvx1aCWlzN2w__GYcNbDo9lvNKH6k/s1600-h/omaghflowers.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5236999299100442706" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 141px" height="180" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVNXvQ6hVxuh-f08kZPsFhi9FL26urS6omSumPBNCDbi7XIXhEC2Hkka4F4dQR6iWHgTEra9nlO5CDlt-OhzV0XfJ9KUhNXPjIVdQmI8X4l2PPP5Zvx1aCWlzN2w__GYcNbDo9lvNKH6k/s320/omaghflowers.jpg" width="235" border="0" /></a>The controversy surrounding the tenth anniversary of the Omagh bombing has highlighted once again the difficultly in dealing politically with such events. While there is a political settlement and a power sharing government there has been no honest examination the past or a resolution the legacy of the Troubles.<br /><br /><div>The basic fact of the atrocity is that the Real IRA detonated a bomb in Omagh town centre that resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine people. But the various political parties place their own interpretations this event. This has come out more strongly over the years with revelations that the bombing could have been prevented, and that there was no proper investigation. There were also the failed prosecutions in the north and south that revealed police corruption and raised suspicions over the role state agents may have played in the atrocity.<br /></div><br /><div>Sinn Fein for its part has tried to completeley dissociate itself from the bombing, using it to draw a line between the activities of the provisionals and the Real IRA. This was in demonstrated in the row over the wording on the Omagh memorial, with the Sinn Fein controlled council insisting that the organisation responsible was not identified. Mentioning the Real IRA would have highlighted the fact that those responsible for the bombing had only recently broken from the provisionals, and that the provisional movement itself had endorsed such tactics. The catch all term "dissident republicans" that was finally used in the memorial is one that allows Sinn Fein to distance itself from the event and also to portray any critics of its strategy as being associated with mass murder.<br /></div><br /><div>The British, whatever their role in the Omagh bombing, certainly saw benefits from its political fallout . It served to discredit the republican opposition, solidify support for the the GFA and bind the provisionals into the political process. The threat of a return to the armed campaign by the provisionls, though never credible, was made impossible.<br /></div><br /><div>It suits both Sinn Fein and the British to propagate the line that Omagh was an atrocity carried out by dissidents, and that if such atrocities are to be prevented in the future people must support the peace process. This was very much the message of the official remembrance ceremony which gathered together the great and the good. These included the police chiefs and political leaders who have been responsible in denying justice to the victims.<br /></div><br /><div>Within this "official" view on the Omagh bombing there is no room for dissent. This meant that those victims relatives who are struggling to find the truth of what happened were effectively excluded from the remembrance events. At least 10 of the victim's families, members of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, boycotted the official memorial service. Its chairman Michael Gallagher, who lost his son Aiden in the bombing, summed up their feelings on the event: "There are, not a small number of people, but a large number of people who feel very uncomfortable about what happened and they rather we`d all go away and forget about it." Kevin Skelton, vice chair of the group, was particularly scathing of politicians, accusing them of doing "nothing for the families of the Omagh atrocity".</div><br /><div><br />The families reiterated their call for a full cross-border public inquiry into the atrocity. But once again this met with rejection. The strongest opposition to his call came from Taoiseach Brian Cowan - just hours after he had laid a wreath in memory of the victims.<br /></div><br /><div>Ten years on from the Omagh bombing the search for the truth of what happened that day remains as elusive as ever. Like many other events from the history of the Troubles it is not really in the past but very much of the present. For the stability of the peace process depends on people not rocking the boat and raising questions over controversial events and the bona fides of its main sponsors. Despite the rhetoric the nature of the political settlement means that justice and reconciliation can never be delivered. </div>SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-9314861346767368512008-08-07T22:12:00.003+00:002008-08-07T22:20:11.965+00:00The Workers flag is deepest white -<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL4gQoZ_5DWij6WHQe6NI7YVRo8SsjLeHFQRnjPpQTrGvWrpj396Igj2t3ecPDecQv8UvQOb1sm5SjA5817tnvdcYz2LxFbjJsTEiBOLdpYkPiNgVRifE9hHkUMCDpEqt9_7lfaQfzca4/s1600-h/white+flag.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5231902589455482210" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL4gQoZ_5DWij6WHQe6NI7YVRo8SsjLeHFQRnjPpQTrGvWrpj396Igj2t3ecPDecQv8UvQOb1sm5SjA5817tnvdcYz2LxFbjJsTEiBOLdpYkPiNgVRifE9hHkUMCDpEqt9_7lfaQfzca4/s400/white+flag.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong>Irish TU bureaucracy ride to war?</strong><br /><br />‘Possibly the end of social partnership’ intoned Jack O'Connor of SIPTU following the collapse of wage talks with the Irish government and bosses.<br /><br /><br />‘This isn't a phoney war’, one of his colleagues assured us.<br /><br />That comment indicates that the bureaucracy are aware of the scepticism that will greet any war cries following decades of social partnership. But is it true? Will the bureaucracy do a U-turn and launch class war against the Irish capitalists?<br /><br />There are reasons to doubt this.<br /><br />Social partnership hasn't collapsed. The current social partnership deal, towards 2016, was built over a ten-year time period precisely to avoid embarrassing issues such as pay cuts breaking the umbilical connections between the bureaucracy, bosses and government.<br /><br />In case we get confused, union leaders immediately rowed back. O’Connor indicated that relations with the social partners remained good and ICTU leader David Beggs indicated that he remained hopeful that social partnership could be preserved and that the failure to agree a deal did not mean the end of social partnership as a project, going on to remark that 'under certain circumstances', the bureaucracy would agree a wage rise below the rate of inflation.<br /><br />In the good old days the bureaucracy used to keep the fact that they were preparing to sell out a secret. This crowd tell us up front!<br /><br />The trade union leaders intend to stage a pantomime. The want to move into limited, staged confrontations that they hope will strengthen their hand when they go back to the table in September. Workers can take advantage of the pantomime and aim to win the confrontations, but only to the extent that they organize independently of the bureaucracy rather than following blindly behind them.northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-84301061839769348672008-07-29T10:21:00.005+00:002008-12-12T22:05:45.706+00:00Poison Iris<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin_OHJVbLCdXRrEmy1x4QpELIRvS5lWHcHFnI9NJKsBEkRxh_k1PzCs8JPM4Vof-CWxqvPTLJKxauxdHWHK8WjJRS5Yrvr3rOaeO2S2m-j7BygL8uFH07616BrJalnDT-0-LYQP6n0TlA/s1600-h/IrisRobinson.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228381222683267506" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 157px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 223px" height="228" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin_OHJVbLCdXRrEmy1x4QpELIRvS5lWHcHFnI9NJKsBEkRxh_k1PzCs8JPM4Vof-CWxqvPTLJKxauxdHWHK8WjJRS5Yrvr3rOaeO2S2m-j7BygL8uFH07616BrJalnDT-0-LYQP6n0TlA/s320/IrisRobinson.gif" width="170" border="0" /></a>The recent anti-gay comments by Iris Robinson (DUP MP, wife of the party leader and first monster, and chair of the Assembly’s health committee) have highlighted for the umpteenth time the thoroughly reactionary nature of politics in the north.<br /><br />This latest bout of bile was sparked a number of weeks ago when was Robinson appeared on Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan Show to comment on a homophobic attack o<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha8Bxp94XaRWWVJEEsyVfqdPzipSk5D1DBHwUHnypfXqgaoCJ2vdRUoJkOUpiavdZrqKtEBoFUxa-h_uBT-vpz4dCGUfR2ltYqmBSdV4aoTVYwrOPJUpKgMfElaZP6Rzq3nNPsm2uUMjU/s1600-h/iris.jpg"></a>n a man in the Newtownabbey area. Given the DUP’s well-known and long-standing position on homosexuality, and the presenter’s own publicity seeking approach, some sort of controversy was probably inevitable. In this respect Iris certainly delivered. After a halfhearted condemnation of the assault, she lunched into an anti-gay tirade that could only have given comfort to those who carried it out, describing homosexuality as “vile,” “disgusting,” “nauseating” and “an abomination”. She topped this off with an offer to refer homosexuals to the care of a psychiatrist friend who had helped gays to “turn away from what they are engaged in.”<br /><br />These comments were a media sensation for a few days and drew some mild criticism from gay groups and politicians. But if people thought this was going to blow over they were wrong. Just a few weeks later Robinson was courting more controversy. Taking part in a radio discussion on whether the severe restrictions on abortion in the north should be relaxed, she argued that they should not on the basis that government had “a responsibility to uphold God’s laws”. This conjured up images of a Free Presbyterian version of Iran, with DUP ministers framing legislation in accordance with Ayatollah Paisley’s interpretation of the scriptures.<br /><br />However, Iris still wasn’t finished. Just last week it was revealed that the First Minister’s wife told a House of Commons committe, during a debate on the assessment and management of sex offenders, that “there can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children”. Maybe this was a little too strong even for the DUP, with Iris forced to back track, first claiming that her comments had been misreported (thy hadn’t) and then issuing a clarification. It turns out that what she meant to say was that homosexuality was only “comparable” to child abuse, and that she was “totally repulsed by both.” Well that’s a big improvement. The fact is that Robinson’s comments are a form of incitement that can lead directly to the type of assault carried out against the young man in Newtownabbey. All this pious baloney about loving the sinner but hating the sin is just a cover for pure hatred and bigotry.<br /><br />One reaction to the comments by Robinson is to portray them as an outburst from a particularly bitter individual. However, even a glance at the public record shows that such attitudes run right through the DUP. It was party founder and former chuckle brother Ian Paisley who pushed to stop homosexuality being decriminalised in the north with the ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ campaign. It was Paisley’s wife, the recently ennobled Eileen, who led the campaign in the House of Lords to oppose anti-discrimination legislation. Their son Ian Jnr also got in on the act when, as a junior minister with responsibility for equality, he stated that he was ‘repulsed’ by gay men and lesbians<br /><br />And there’s more - such as DUP councillor Arthur Templeton, who was found guilty of harassing a gay colleague and ordered to pay £4,000 in damages. There’s Edwin Poots, who as a councillor in Lisburn tried to ban gay and lesbian couples from holding civil partnerships. During his period as sports minister he called the presence of Ulster’s only gay rugby team - the Ulster Titans- a form of “apartheid”. While in 2005 he remarked that homosexuality needed to be “overcome just like alcoholism and drug addiction”.<br /><br />The views of the DUP on homosexuality, and on equality issues more generally, are consistent. They are, and continue to be, opposed to the very concept of equality, whether that is in relation to religion, race, politics, class, sexuality, gender or anything else. That they are now heading the Government really makes a mockery of claims, from Sinn Fein in particular, that equality is at the heart of the settlement. Indeed, its very stability depends on the DUP demonstrating that this is not the case. In this context Iris Robinson’s comments, rather than a rash outburst, can be seen as a calculated signal to its supporters than they have nothing to fear.<br /><br />What this recent controversy has also demonstrated the extent to which gay rights activists have accepted the political approach of the peace process. In this schema the most bigoted views are legitimatised and their promoters accommodated. It is notable that there were very few calls for Iris Robinson to resign her position as Assembly health committee chair. In any liberal democratic system she wouldn’t have survived. But in the north she continues. Those who are the subject of her hate speech call not for her resignation but for her to engage in debate. They have even invited her to a Gay Pride event!SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-91733599552818156582008-07-10T17:08:00.002+00:002008-12-12T22:05:46.062+00:00Exporting peace<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrEdmaQaS22PDVOrCMOJlbyczmXF28UcjnwDeR1MVbksfVtKiZkjejq6BF7UJq6sEFl6Yfww_rEKc1ZTq5ekTGzINFjjp0XCaLsCdGypttxQ2GR7sUdfrqTvWMqpsqn3AZsLZD8VWEyso/s1600-h/McGuinness.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221434273659562882" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrEdmaQaS22PDVOrCMOJlbyczmXF28UcjnwDeR1MVbksfVtKiZkjejq6BF7UJq6sEFl6Yfww_rEKc1ZTq5ekTGzINFjjp0XCaLsCdGypttxQ2GR7sUdfrqTvWMqpsqn3AZsLZD8VWEyso/s320/McGuinness.jpg" border="0" /></a>The recent mission by Martin McGuinness to Iraq is an indication of the extent to which Sinn Fein has been incorporated into imperialism. Once its implacable enemy they are now the trusted promoters of pro-imperialist settlements for conflicts around the world. The Irish peace process and their own political strategy are held up as models for others to follow.<br /><br />The underlying assumption is that the peace process represents a resolution of conflict. Yet the reality is that it represents the complete defeat of the republican struggle for self determination. The traditional programme Irish republicanism has been completely turned inside out with Sinn Fein helping to administer British rule in the north. If there is a peace then it is because the British and unionist position is no longer being challenged. Indeed, the British state is now seen as a force for progressive change. In return for their acquiescence Sinn Fein gets a slice of the sectarian pie.<br /><br />It is the airbrushing of imperialism and the definition of the conflict as one between two communities that makes the Irish peace processes a particularly appealing model for Iraq. This is reflected in the content of the McGuinness mission to Iraq with its emphasis on Sunni-Shia reconciliation. In this framework the occupation of the country by the US and Britain does not feature.<br /><br />Although nominally independent this mission has the full support of the US and Britain. The Helsinki process (it took this name because first meeting of the group took place in the Finnish capital) has been carefully nurtured for over a year. In addition to Sinn Fein it also involves the ANC. The South Africans are veterans at advising on conflict resolution, having in earlier periods promoted their own settlement as a model for Ireland and Palestine to follow.<br /><br />The culmination of this process was the meeting that took place in the Al-Rashid hotel within Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. Attended by the Irish, South Africans and a number of Iraqi factions, this produced an agreement that commits all groups to disband unlawful armed groups, respect the independence of the judiciary, combat corruption and support the constitution. It also says that factions should resolve discord by peaceful and democratic means and uphold equality for all citizens.<br /><br />On the face of it this would seem to represent be some form of progress, but set against the reality of what is going on in Iraq it is a mockery. There is massive corruption, widespread sectarian violence and intimidation, and systematic abuses by the Iraqi Government. The greatest offence though is that the main cause of the strife that afflicts Iraq – its occupation by US and Britain – is ignored. This is particularly blatant at a time when the US is pressing Iraqis to accept a permanent military presence and open their oil industry to foreign ownership.<br /><br />Unbelievably, Mac Maharaj of the ANC has described the process as providing Iraqi’s with a “platform to speak to each other without factoring in outside interests”. While Martin McGuinness predicts a groundswell of support that “may lead to a total end of the conflict in that country.” These are deceptions and dangerous ones at that as they can only advance the imperialist agenda for Iraq.<br /><br />It is a testimony to the degeneration of the ANC and Sinn Fein that they should lend themselves to this. This particularly pertinent for the ANC whose settlement has been exposed by the recent outbreak of xenophobic violence. For its part Sinn Fein seem to be suffering from self deception as they trumpet the achievements of the Irish peace process. Flattered by being given the role of imperialism’s useful idiots they have completely lost any sense of political reality. This is reflected in the ludicrous boast by Martin McGuinness that pictures of himself with Ian Paisley “had a profound impact in Iraq”. Please!SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-84278931046933268332008-06-17T20:50:00.004+00:002008-12-12T22:05:46.333+00:00Ding! Ding! Lisbon Treaty round 2 has started already!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn62wx44YAUj-8NuakbH9Z9M6EUQg7h60NeYvUw94vXeJ-uIWrmGR_0EapQ6QaK7TRd1Dp_hYNQRrkkbOJC5Ml9P63XlnKGXbLDyTD5662Q7GlFUCH7iag3gzeN7eHSruowOmFvzmChNlY/s1600-h/lisbon+no.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212957891430811394" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn62wx44YAUj-8NuakbH9Z9M6EUQg7h60NeYvUw94vXeJ-uIWrmGR_0EapQ6QaK7TRd1Dp_hYNQRrkkbOJC5Ml9P63XlnKGXbLDyTD5662Q7GlFUCH7iag3gzeN7eHSruowOmFvzmChNlY/s320/lisbon+no.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Well that didn’t take long did it? Hardly had we a chance to pause for breath but Brian Cowan has told EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso that he is going to call another referendum because they didn’t get the result they wanted, although they won’t be so quick to admit it.<br /><br />We don’t really need to labour the point about how undemocratic this is. No, hold on a minute – yes we do! There will be all sorts of dust kicked up about declarations and protocols attached to the Treaty when it is eventually put to the vote again but they will all mean nothing. How do we know that? Because when the French and Dutch workers told the EU constitution to get stuffed they gave them the Lisbon Treaty instead, with next to no significant difference except that the French and Dutch weren’t allowed to vote again.<br /><br />It’s also undemocratic because the Irish vote was a vote of EU citizens which, if the EU really was democratic, would count in a Europe-wide vote. In other words it’s not a matter of the Irish being given this or that assurance. Despite the largely nationalistic content of the No campaign this was a European vote against militarism and neoliberal economic policies across Europe. It was a defence mechanism not just for Irish workers but for all European workers.<br /><br />This means we should say to Sinn Fein and anyone else who wants to negotiate, or rather get Cowan to negotiate, a series of opt outs on our behalf – and what a joke that idea is –that that’s not what we voted for. We voted for all of us to be spared the race to the bottom that the EU has planned in the name of competitiveness.<br /><br />This means we immediately need to start building a truly internationalist, a really democratic and necessarily socialist opposition.<br /><br />The No camp has now been told – rhetorically because they would never dream of letting us do it in reality - that we should put forward what we want the EU to do now. Well let's start with determining what this means.<br /><br />First we now realise, if anyone was ever in any doubt, that the idea that the Irish State was now out of the domination of an empire is nonsense. Ireland is not France as they say. We can get stuffed but this could never be said to one of the major imperialist EU powers. This means we must unite with workers across Europe also opposed to Lisbon because we will not defeat it by ourselves.<br /><br />It means demanding a really democratic European organisation - a Constituent Assembly to decide how we really want to be governed. This would mean putting together a constitution that embodied not the rights of free markets, of money, but the rights of workers, women, youth and immigrants to real freedom, and control of resources to deliver a Europe dedicated to its people and not profit. But a Europe for thoseat the bottom will have to be built from the bottom - from mobilising workers in Ireland and across Europe.<br /><br />The fight has only begun. We have been told by our enemies we don’t have an alternative. Socialists need to put forward exactly what it is. No more hiding behind broad campaigns. It’s time to fight for the socialist No, and also a socialist Yes to what we really want.</div>Hoopyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15358274060750165422noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-78230411790938439002008-06-16T14:40:00.002+00:002008-12-12T22:05:46.886+00:00Internment vote puts DUP in driving seat<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3VbeeIU0Ad3BueyzfEr9nEsczGndkfaYZltqxROPyehxWcbFBHS5lT9zxMbEN-oLQbUQoJ2Cf21AkHjuJf3-QFxNx7N0PSvCGUNMDhXKJwvxEz4xG9jgMhcpn7XLnDRhZrdZWyOB2d4/s1600-h/Robinson+-+Dodds.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212489909760968098" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 255px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 164px" height="180" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3VbeeIU0Ad3BueyzfEr9nEsczGndkfaYZltqxROPyehxWcbFBHS5lT9zxMbEN-oLQbUQoJ2Cf21AkHjuJf3-QFxNx7N0PSvCGUNMDhXKJwvxEz4xG9jgMhcpn7XLnDRhZrdZWyOB2d4/s320/Robinson+-+Dodds.jpg" width="275" border="0" /></a>The passage of the 42 day detention law through the Commons on the votes of the DUP may have caused consternation in Britain, but it can hardly come as a surprise to anyone familiar with their record. The DUP and its counterparts in the UUP have consistently backed the use of repressive laws. Historically, this was epitomised most clearly under the old Stormont regime. Its Special Powers Act allowed for the suspension of fundamental democratic rights and legal principles. This law and the repressive apparatus that enforced it operated freely under the gaze of successive British governments. Of course as it applied only to the north of Ireland few objections were raised. Indeed, there is an anti Irish element to the current outrage, with the Government being accused by its opponents of using "Irish votes" to abolish English civil liberties.<br /><br />Much of the media speculation has been about the nature of the deal between the DUP and the Brown government. This has covered such things as the money raised from the sale of army bases being retained by the Executive; a further delay in the introduction of water charges and a commentator not to extend abortion laws to the north. The deal appears to be a hodgepodge of patronage and reaction.<br /><br />However, the details of what was agreed between the DUP and the government are secondary to the fact that there was a deal at all. The critical point is that the Brown government is now dependent on the DUP for its survival. The implications of this were spelt out clearly in the boast by Gregory Campbell that his party "now holds the balance of power at Westminster and we will use it to force the pace".<br /><br />The DUP’s coup over the detention vote puts into stark relief the attempt by Sinn Fein to win concessions through engineering a mini crisis over the nomination of the new First Minister. This collapsed in ignominy with Sinn Fein agreeing to nominate with only a commitment from the British and the unionists to discuss their concerns. The Gordon Brown-DUP deal shoots a hole in the Sinn Fein belief that the British will put pressure on the DUP to move on issues such as an Irish language act and and the devolution of policing and justice powers. One consequence of the Brown-DUP deal will be the return of a form of internment to the north. As part of the UK, 42 day detention will apply here as well. Weren't we promised that repressive laws were a thing of the past?SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-35544052081586481082008-06-09T11:23:00.003+00:002008-12-12T22:05:47.409+00:00DUP Iris Does It Again<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209841724580566578" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 153px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" height="104" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrLdjn0fspTAAROCSarNUpHEDgz9N7sobLMdft60BJTtYJLQOag8nvpHjptHcaeIKyF7iy_jl4VBSd3UrINyX3qLqtYfBhudDginGoE3On8k8Mb8CIg55NF4hJ7yUdW07AF0I4NmPW3O8/s400/images.jpeg" width="133" border="0" />Days Like These No7</span><br /><br />by Guest Blogger Gerry Fitzpatrick<br /><br />I'll not be commenting on the precise details Mrs R's recent outburst but wish to look at it's political consequences. What the Belfast Agreement and the St Andrew's Agreement was about for the British and Irish governments and Sinn Fein was to present the the DUP as new 'shiney happy people' (as the Irish Times described IPsnr) and every thing in the new DUP/SF future will be fine and if not fine - manageable.<br /><br />After several incidents involving the DUP bigotry and malpractice SF's condemnations of their partners in government are waring pretty thin, because they are the ones who have vested interest in the fantasy that DUP can be what they want them to be - and not what they are.<br /><br />The difference between this latest DUP instance of homophobia and previous instances is that the DUP via Iris are now telling us loud and clear 'they will not be silenced' not by anyone and have a right to their views. She has now been reported to the police by various groups - including the Alliance party for her hate speech. That will, if nothing else show us just how strong the DUP and Loyalist bigotry is here, as she is turned into a Loyalist hero -a 'victim' of 'liberal left political correctness' as one of her supporters put it .<br /><br />The endorsement given by Iris to Dr Miller who is still practices aversion therapy in the province is now official as Mrs Robinsion is not only the chair of the Stormont health committee she also sat on the the special committee on suicide prevention. Now we know her solution for people who have suffered as a result of homophobia 'I know a Dr, who can help you change your sexual orientation...'. The person she offered that advise to had just been beaten and left for dead in Carmoney a few days ago.<br /><br />Sinn Fein seem to think that they are dealing with a New DUP when they are the same as when they first started - an organisation devoted to reaction pure and simple. And it is Sinn Fein that we all have to thank for putting the DUP and that reaction into government.northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-81143528357331962122008-06-06T18:47:00.006+00:002008-12-12T22:05:47.837+00:00Siptu Gets Stuck In<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihaYqajI1LAzJ7BR2UHXxXqaQXKLPOGiFahvJF-p_zNjBkr6zFBsR9tJg_7biHlvoI2nXSDRNYIg74dEGHOelhEIbUN5DrAz7O42-zf8Omo0LyqgeY-4xfdWRN27hL7EOvajW0lmfQmb_2/s1600-h/SIPTU.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208844479246367026" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 145px" height="145" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihaYqajI1LAzJ7BR2UHXxXqaQXKLPOGiFahvJF-p_zNjBkr6zFBsR9tJg_7biHlvoI2nXSDRNYIg74dEGHOelhEIbUN5DrAz7O42-zf8Omo0LyqgeY-4xfdWRN27hL7EOvajW0lmfQmb_2/s320/SIPTU.jpg" width="200" border="0" /></a>The recent painful history of union collaboration with employer attacks on workers’ conditions in Aer Lingus is so blatant that it could almost be forgiven if anyone with the least concern about the issues turned away in embarrassment and disgust.<br /><br />SIPTU supported privatisation of the state-owned company on condition that workers conditions were protected. Ever since there have been unremitting attacks on these conditions while those at the top of the company have given themselves extravagant bonuses for having successfully pushed them through. In truth they have received these under false pretences. Those really responsible for their successful implementation are the trade union leaders who first of all sold privatisation and then imposed the attacks on workers when they were initially rejected.<br /><br />Having made an agreement for pay rises under the latest social partnership umbrella – ‘Towards 2016’ – Aer Lingus management then tore this deal up and refused to pass the pay increases on to their workers. Then they demanded €20m cuts. What was SIPTU’s reaction? When workers rejected the cuts they made them vote again. Just as they did during the Nice Treaty referendum when they supported the government when it too demanded another vote when the first one didn’t go their way.<br /><br />In this case however the union bureaucracy’s treachery is worse. When they voted for a second time, according to the union’s rules, the workers again rejected the deal. This time their leaders just tore up their own rule book and imposed the new terms and conditions on those sections of the workforce where a majority had been brow-beaten into accepting them in the second ballot. The remaining sections have been left isolated. They will no doubt receive short shrift if they too decide to fight back and ignore, by-pass or circumvent the union rule book, which is so often the bureaucracy’s weapon against its own members.<br /><br />This whole rotten story has now been repeated with handlers at the aircraft maintenance firm SR Technics, an earlier victim of government and union false promises. Having voted against changes to their terms and conditions SIPTU again imposed another vote and forced another rotten ‘compromise’ on the workers. The nature of this compromise and the union’s sorry record has been made so clear in a SIPTU statement that it hardly requires socialists to comment further.<br /><div><br />The SIPTU statement reads: “The handlers are willing to be trained up to undertake the task while awaiting the outcome of the arbitration. I would also like to point out that these men have undertaken additional productivity in the past without any monetary reward. They have had to forego the seven per cent increase due to them under the Sustaining Progress agreement and the last phase of Towards 2016, which was worth another 2.5 per cent, making a cumulative total of ten per cent. This latest change was introduced at the last minute in negotiations which had focused on the craft group of workers and we were given very little time to deal with the issue.”</div><br /><div><br />So SIPTU dealt with it by mugging the workforce.<br /></div><br /><div>These are by no means isolated examples of the role of union bureaucracies, but rather fit neatly into a pattern that is so evident that it is overwhelming. Yet still many on the left regard these people as misguided reformists who share the same goal but just differ in ideas or methods. Like brass monkeys they see, hear and speak no evil as they hoist these people onto platforms in whatever single issue campaign is their latest hobby horse – giving them radical credentials so radically false we turn away in embarrassment and disgust.</div><br /><div><br />But that is where we came in. </div>Hoopyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15358274060750165422noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-77069711668182909782008-05-31T19:15:00.006+00:002008-12-12T22:05:48.275+00:00Man bites dog<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimdqLh1LJB1AkqpAAK9VQYitsLXdKN82vPTWKBpcELmSEz_vzQ58u0Ny4S5mo0noH6S0Pok6AGL6pPW7v7tRchkUcvEX2Cp3wyPUiL9Z40Z4VJvOmHujm-ksHByjwB867lOV3WbE3Sey4/s1600-h/cavecanem.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5206623246491095250" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 191px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 212px" height="320" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimdqLh1LJB1AkqpAAK9VQYitsLXdKN82vPTWKBpcELmSEz_vzQ58u0Ny4S5mo0noH6S0Pok6AGL6pPW7v7tRchkUcvEX2Cp3wyPUiL9Z40Z4VJvOmHujm-ksHByjwB867lOV3WbE3Sey4/s320/cavecanem.jpg" width="212" border="0" /></a><strong>Irish trade unionism – the home of the young conservative fogey</strong><br /><br />Aficionados of Irish trade unionism may well have missed a recent gem by Sean Fryers, member of Unite executive and a youth member of the Irish Congress of Irish Congress of Trade Unions. In the Irish News on 28th May he bemoans the plight of local business facing inflation, increased energy costs, a climate change levy and water charges. His members face all these to a much greater extent than their bosses, but Sean chooses to write about the plight of the capitalists.<br /><br />He worries about all these “as local companies will be unable to increase the pay of the working class people”.<br /><br />The solution is for the local capitalist administration to lobby the Brown government to obtain a reduction in energy costs “for local employers”.<br /><br />This is one of these “Man bites dog” stories, where the trade union representative demonstrates on behalf of the bosses, ignores the needs of the workers and gives a green light for a pay freeze before negotiations even begin.<br /><br />It provoked no comment, but perhaps that’s hardly surprising in a week where the Trade union leadership are involved in yet another partnership sellout, one group of workers were on hunger strike outside ‘Unite’ offices because of alleged union collusion in their sacking and another group had split completely from Unite, alleging that their officers were in collusion with the employers.<br /><br />Reading Sean Fryers offering, they may well have a point.northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-41430496198133362802008-05-31T14:15:00.002+00:002008-05-31T19:15:33.188+00:00Days Like These No6<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">‘When are filmmakers going to make unionism ‘sexy’?’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">by Guest Blogger Gerry Fitzpatrick<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The above question was the large print headline to a news feature that appeared in the Irish News 27.05.08 prompted by a complaint by the playwright Garry Mitchell ‘It has been said to me’, the playwright told the paper, ‘that Catholics are ‘sexier’, that they’re far more interesting and far more entertaining and that the leads [main actors] are more interesting if they’re Catholic’.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This response was solicited from the playwright as part of the papers reaction to the news that a film Hunger by the black director Alexander McQueen depicting the last days of the hunger striker Bobby Sands, had just won the Camera d’Or at the <st1:city><st1:place>Cannes</st1:place></st1:City> film festival. <span style=""> </span>‘Is the success of Hunger’, the paper asked, ‘evidence that ‘the troubles movie’ had turned the corner?’ In the two articles what followed the answer ‘no’ was given by those opposed to the film. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>Now it may well be expecting too much of the a Belfast based newspaper to try and answer their own question by asking the director Alexander McQueen why he would even want to direct a film about Bobby Sands. The article only reported hostile unionist reaction. Publishing comment that ranged from anti-Agreement unionist James Dixon who accused the film of ‘glorifying some of the worst criminals in hell’ to the DUP’s Robin Newton who said that Alexander McQueen didn’t understand the truth about ‘the fanatical nature of terrorists’ – who along with other unionist members of Belfast City Council had opposed the making of the film in Belfast. These were the only people quoted. The balance of the article -if one could call it that - didn’t appear to be an issue. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""> </span>Some may think it a rather glib point to make but it is <span style=""> </span>important <span style=""> </span>–given the nature of the subject – that it is now considered a cliché to refer to a serious matter as interesting (or not) due to the fact of it being ‘sexy’ or not. The English novelist A.S Byatt made that point rather poignantly over ten years ago when she said that one of most offensive traits of the 1980s was the intrusion of city yuppie jargon into common speech.<span style=""> </span>So it was not uncommon to hear things like mortgages being referred to as ‘sexy’ deals when it had, as she said, ‘got nothing to do with sex’ or sex appeal. The above quoted headline ‘When are filmmakers going to make unionism’ sexy’’ not only does the paper a disservice, it does Gary Mitchell a disservice also.<span style=""> </span>For he was reporting the speech of film industry people, he has never seen it as his job to make unionism or Loyalism sexy and he has had a good deal of success in portraying it as anything but!</p>northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327064947903755112noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2092460524833585582.post-86658022319258526722008-05-27T15:03:00.009+00:002008-12-12T22:05:48.476+00:00Where are They and What Do They Believe In Now? - Part 2 the BBC & The SWP<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0ZXx1tLsFz1CAZAckSC0ptYmfyoTDqWk6ndYatyB8Kn9Y9ZmnuegJ5EpacrU1Nf58hpQT2a53EB27nzT6NRRRfVh6VhyPDYrjRxlv_vc4GuCUYXqAGBHUIsgzt9orHEA6pH_0IuPFM0/s1600-h/bbcnews.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5205075360303986386" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 227px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" height="135" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0ZXx1tLsFz1CAZAckSC0ptYmfyoTDqWk6ndYatyB8Kn9Y9ZmnuegJ5EpacrU1Nf58hpQT2a53EB27nzT6NRRRfVh6VhyPDYrjRxlv_vc4GuCUYXqAGBHUIsgzt9orHEA6pH_0IuPFM0/s320/bbcnews.jpg" width="227" border="0" /></a>Days like these Part. 5<br /><br />Guest blogger Gerry Fitzpatrick<br /><br />First, an update on previous entries: The Labour revolt over the abolition of 10p lower tax band lead by back bencher Frank Field is now at an end, as he announced in the House of Commons. After having secured a pledge that its negative effects will be removed, Mr Field said that his war with the government ‘is now over’ (the Labour Lefts’ mini is now safely back in neutral mode). Unfortunately it will be of little help to the poor as the price of oil, wheat and rice sky rocket. Labour after the May council elections and the Crewe by-election will not be able to remain in power by seeking more advice from the free market Gurus. A parliamentary researcher friend tells me that those government ministers, who have managed to give up the gurus, have given up being Labour politicians as well.<br /><br />I see that Mr Brendan Barber and the TUC have managed at last to kick their way into the headlines (well into the London Independent at least). He has promised a Summer of Discontent for the government – interesting that the Independent put it like that - weren’t the workers of the Winter of Discontent defeated? The question now is, can Mr Barber become the new Frank Field? Watch this space!<br /><br />The BBC<br /><br />Rather than debate the value if this publicly owned institution, an evaluation of its effectiveness in aftermath of the disaster of the Hutton Report would be more in order. For it is clear that the Hutton Report was the largest political defeat for the corporation in its history. It was also the most obvious political white-wash of a government since the Bloody Sunday Widgery Tribunal into the Derry killings in 1972 (Hutton, as is widely known, played a controversial role in condemning the coroner after the bloody Sunday Killings for expressing a view that the victims were unlawfully killed). When his report on the death of the government scientist Dr David Kelly was published, it avoided the question of what may have caused his death - such as the government leaking the scientists’ name to the press - and condemning the BBC for helping the scientist express his views anonymously. However, BBC unions missed their chance when it would have been very easy to get public support for a political strike against Hutton and the Government and to protest against one of the most blatant political whitewashes in recent history.<br /><br />Since then, post the Hutton report, the BBC has tried to recover some of its political influence. To a certain extent it has regained that influence, mostly as a consequence of the UK public moving to oppose and protest against the New Labour disaster. However, the BBC has also retained the right to run the usual immigrant scare stories – thus maintaining the Corporation dubious sense of ‘balance.’<br /><br />The SWP<br /><br />The Socialist Workers Party, or the International Socialists as the organisation was before 1976, have managed to become what they used to campaign against – an organisation devoted to identity politics. If anyone was in any doubt as to the change or what it means for socialist campaigns, they should listen to the SWP mayoral candidate Lindsey German speaking at the last Stop the War Conference. Rather than emphasize the collective action of all groups and the international role of the War and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the anti war leader repeatedly infers that the war is also a Muslim issue. It is only a Muslim issue in so far as the minority of Muslims say that it is. The wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are not a Muslim issue - in the same way the occupation of the North of Ireland is a not catholic (or a protestant) issue.<br /><br />It is anti-imperialist issue and the socialist aim in any anti-imperialist campaign is the forging of links between all those who oppose the imperial project. As a consequence of the SWP line the involvement of millions was thrown away in the hope that appealing to one group –the Muslim community (no matter how important) would help expand the group’s political influence. That strategy has failed, but the SWP like New Labour and the New Labour leadership, will continue to pile up disaster on disaster - thoroughly convinced that it is everyone else ‘who doesn’t get it’. And that’s one thing the SWP and New Labour are right about.SD webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01246472542984375931noreply@blogger.com4