Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 09:00:31 -0400
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: "Radio Time" No.6 Ireland! 


"Radio Time" No.6 Ireland!

This is a final draft for Straightfacts Radio on Ireland...
Taped from Sweden on August 16,1997..

Warm regards
Bob Malecki

Good Evening.  This is Bob Malecki reporting  for Straight Facts 
somewhere in northern Scandinavia quite near the Polar Circle!

Ireland! New round of "imperialist peace" deals.

Once again a new round of imperialist "peace" deals is beginning 
to get under way. Only this time it is the historically 
"social imperialist" Labor Party under the leadership of 
"New" Labor's Tony Blair sitting in the driver's seat with his
pal Bill Clinton in the background pulling the strings.

This new round of "peace talks" on Ireland differs in NO fundamental way
from the last round of peace talks. Other than that, Blair wants to put a
human face on the continued ambitions of British imperialism to rule in the
whole of Ireland.  Hardly anybody claiming to be Communist or Socialist can
with a straight face claim otherwise.

Perhaps Blair has a better chance of  imposing an imperialist 
"peace" deal on the various sides of this conflict,  although 
I doubt it, but the fundamental line is that British imperialism 
shall  rule either with British troops or in a peace deal
with Protestant and Catholic troops from both sides of this communal
bloodbath.

The big problem here is that it is just the Sinn Fein/IRA on the 
historically oppressed Catholic side that is selling out the 
workers in Ireland for this kind of a deal, which is hardly new!

In fact "Workers Hammer" (British section of the International Communist
League's newspaper in Britain), for our American public, better known as the
Spartacists, put it this way at the beginning of the last round of "peace
talks":

" Imperialist-brokered "peace" deals are a feature of the "New World Order"
proclaimed by the imperialists in the wake of the counterrevolution in the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  The much vaunted Middle East "peace"
process which established a supposed Palestinian autonomy was the model that
Sinn Fein looked at when they decided to call a ceasefire and enter the
"peace process".

We Marxists have consistently warned against such illusions in imperialist
"deals" which we noted would necessarily be at the expense of the oppressed.
The bitter reality of this warning is now being borne out in the bloody
killings of Palestinians by Zionist forces.  We say: Israeli troops and 
settlers out of the occupied territories!

The current wave of Zionist terror against Palestinians and the escalation
of communalist divisions in Northern Ireland starkly reveal that the
strategy of nationalism is a bankrupt one, whether it is pursued through
"armed struggle" or "negotiation". The petty-bougeois nationalist politics of
groups such as Sinn Fein/IRA and the PLO inevitably seek a solution within
the framework of capitalism.  In both cases they have recently looked to U.S.
imperialism to act on their behalf against British imperialism and Zionist
Israel . But there can be no progressive solution to the oppression of the
Catholics in Northern Ireland, or of the Palestinians, short of workers
revolutions thoughout the regions.  Imperialist "solutions" in situations of
interpenetrated peoples invaribly include the prospect of intensified
communalism, which means "ethnic cleansing", and fratricidal war.

We of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) have a
long record of fighting for a proletarian internationalist perspective. The
Catholics in Northern Ireland are currently an oppressed minority; we oppose
the forcible unification of Ireland which would reverse the terms of
oppression against the Protestant community -- a scenario which is being used
by Loyalist demogogues to fan the flames of communalism.  We fight for a
workers republic in Ireland, as part of a socialist federation of the
British Isles. This requires an internationalist struggle for the
revolutionary overthrow of British imperialism, also smashing the sectarian
Orange statelet in Northern Ireland and the vicious clerical state in the
south.  "Social imperialism" has been the hallmark of Laborism thoughout this
century.  In sharp contrast we stand in the tradition of the Chartists, who
did not bow their heads before the monarch and were not filled with awed
respect for the capitalist class, its state and institutions.  Instead
Chartism was republican, internationalist and revolutionary-minded.  
We fight to build
revolutionary vanguard parties which are internationally united and
imbued with this tradition ... "

Again, that quotation was from "Workers Hammer", newspaper of the British
Spartacist League, British section of the International Communist
League.

And I could not agree more!

This is Bob Malecki reporting for Straight Facts in Sweden.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check Out My HomePage where you can,

Read or download the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara,
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball!

And Now the International Communist League Page!
Just push on the "Spartacist" Button.

Or Get The Latest Issue of,

COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people.

NEW! "RADIO TIME"  In cooperation with Stratfacts, Bob
Malecki will be giving occasional reports to Stratfacts
Radio audiences in the United States. Text for these
reports now on line. 

http://www.algonet.se/~malecki

Back issues of Cockroach and my book at 
http://www.kmf.org/malecki/

--------------------------------------------------------













     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---