24.10.1996

Unite against imperialist schemes

Last week The Independent described the latest developments in the Six Counties as “two steps back and one step forward” (editorial, October 16).

It was referring to the agreement reached by the two main political organisations on an agenda for the ‘all-party’ talks within a week of the IRA attack on the British army barracks in Lisburn. The Ulster Unionist Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party “agreed to disagree” over the previous stumbling block of arms decommissioning - an arrangement which allows the main political talks to go ahead alongside parallel discussions on arms.

That of course was the recommendation of the Mitchell Commission, accepted by Sinn Fein but rejected by the British government. The Independent editorial added: “Placing guns and bombs at the top of the talks agenda was at best a delaying tactic by the unionists, at worst sabotage.” But it did not implicate the government itself in this “sabotage”.

In fact the Lisburn bombs and the UUP/SDLP agreement are not simply two unconnected events, as The Independent implies. Just as the Docklands bomb jolted forward the imperialist-brokered ‘peace process’, so the attack on the army HQ represented another republican bargaining chip. There is no longer any question of the IRA attempting to drive out the British through military means. It may be that the UUP and SDLP would have reached agreement on parallel decommissioning talks if there had been no Lisburn bomb, but the proximity of the two events is not likely to have been coincidental.

A further indication that IRA actions can push forward, not retard, progress towards an imperialist settlement was the appearance in the same newspaper of an article entitled ‘The prisoners who matter’ (The Independent October 18), which details the “cruel and inhumane” treatment meted out to IRA prisoners in British jails. “Their treatment affects attitudes within the IRA,” writes the author, who quotes an elderly nun as saying: “Something positive has to be done about them, or we can give up on the peace process.”

Former Peoples Democracy MP Bernadette McAliskey likened the ‘peace process’ to third-rate theatre: “They are like poor actors playing out a very predictable script,” she told the Weekly Worker. Nevertheless, the signs are that just a few further concessions (perhaps over the prisoners) will produce a new IRA ceasefire and negotiations that include Sinn Fein.

Our urgent task is to bring about united action amongst workers throughout the UK and Ireland to ensure that the players are not permitted to keep to the imperialist-directed plot.

Jim Blackstock