Ireland: Situation in the Occupied Territories

There has been a lot of talk about Northern Ireland in the media recently. It is all the peace talks that have brought the Irish question back into focus. After long talks between Sinn Fein and the British government and the social democratic SDLP, the IRA agreed to a unilateral ceasefire earlier this fall. A few weeks later, the loyalist terror groups joined the ceasefire. By the time you read this, the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) is also likely to have laid down its arms.

Background

The war in Northern Ireland is not a new phenomenon. In fact, Ireland was England's first colony. England invaded Ireland in 1170, and since then Ireland has never been free from English rule. Hand in hand with imperialist rule, there has been constant local resistance. More or less organized peasant uprisings have continuously fought against British colonial rule.

In 1641, Irish peasants rose up in an uprising that lasted 8 years and was eventually crushed by the infamous Cromwell with outright massacres in Drogheda and Wexford. At the time, a quarter of Ireland's Catholic population was killed, and hundreds of thousands sold into slavery.

To this day, loyalists celebrate July 2nd as the final victory over Catholic rebels. It is the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in I690, when King William of Orange defeated the Irish peasants and the Catholic James II.

It is this day that has largely given the Irish conflict the appearance of a religious conflict. The conquest of Ireland was never about religion, but religious differences have been deliberately exploited by the British upper classes as propaganda for further intervention in Ireland. When Irish peasants and workers fought against British rule, they automatically had to fight the Catholic hierarchy as well.

The British colonial power faced a new opponent in 1791, the Society of United Irishmen, led by Wolfe Tone, a Protestant lawyer inspired by the French Revolution. Tone understood early on the importance of fighting the religious barriers that had been built up. This, of course, was not acceptable, and in 1798 the United Irishmen's rebellion was crushed and 50,000 republicans were executed by the British army.

By the early 20th century, the Irish resistance had definitely taken on a more political character.1905 saw the formation of Sinn Fein (which is Gaelic for 'we ourselves'). At the same time, the revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood had moved the fight to England for the first time, carrying out bombings in London and Manchester. As one famous activist, James Connolly put it “- We cannot imagine an oppressed Ireland with a free working class, nor can we imagine a free Ireland with an oppressed working class”.

On April 24, 1916, armed men and women stormed the Post Office headquarters in Dublin, proclaiming the free Irish Republic. Now, 150 revolutionaries storming a post office cannot replace a revolutionary working class, and within a week the rebellion had been crushed.

However, this uprising, the Easter Rising, became the starting point for the socialist republican movement that still forms the anti-imperialist resistance in Ireland today.

In 1921, Ireland split into two states, with 26 counties becoming what is now known as the Republic of Ireland. Six counties in the north became what is known as Northern Ireland or Ulster (Ulster actually contained 9 counties but three of these with large Catholic populations had to be left out to maintain a safe loyalist majority).

In the six counties everything remained as before. Anti-Catholic pogroms were still commonplace, as was racist legislation and poverty unparalleled in Europe. In the late 1960s, a civil rights campaign was launched, inspired by similar campaigns in South Africa and the United States.

However, rights did not materialize. Demonstrations and other peaceful initiatives were bloodily suppressed by paramilitary police and loyalist terrorist groups. In January 1969, after another peaceful march was violently attacked, riots broke out in Derry. Riots continue sporadically throughout the year, and in August barricades are built to protect the Catholic Bogside. Residents declare 'Free Derry' and the area runs itself for three months. This in turn leads to the British Army being called to Northern Ireland to 'restore law and order'. Resistance to the British military began immediately, and soon the IRA re-emerged and launched a military campaign against the imperialist occupier.

The British military stayed, and is still there. 30,000 British soldiers control an area the size of Gotland, with a population the size of Stockholm.

Why a ceasefire?

The last year has been bloody in Northern Ireland. Loyalist terror groups have been more active in shooting innocent, targeted Catholics. During the World Cup, Catholic pubs were massacred in the middle of Ireland's televised matches. In other words, the IRA has found it increasingly difficult to protect nationalist neighborhoods.

In an attempt to stop loyalist terror, the IRA planned to blow up a flat on the loyalist Shankhill Road. The flat was to host a meeting of the UFF leadership in the evening, but the action failed when the bomb, placed in a fishmonger's shop below the flat, went off prematurely. The IRA soldier Thomas Begley died along with a dozen customers in the fish shop.

In addition to the war in Northern Ireland, the IRA has also waged a successful bombing campaign on the British mainland. On two recent occasions they have managed to plant and detonate very powerful explosive devices in London's financial center. The IRA has shown that it can hit where it hurts. And the British financial community has watched helplessly as more and more foreign banks and corporations leave London for security reasons.

After twenty-five years of war against the British occupying forces, the people of Northern Ireland have grown rather tired of violence. In other words, there is real pressure on the IRA and Sinn Fein to seize every opportunity for peace. And since the republican movement has broad popular support in Northern Ireland, it cannot afford to miss any opportunities.

A ceasefire by the IRA is nothing new; over the past 25 years, the IRA has called a ceasefire on a number of occasions. But there are some qualitative differences this time.

- The ceasefire is not fixed in time.
- For the first time, loyalist terrorist groups have laid down their arms at the same time as the IRA.
- The British government has been forced to admit that it has no strategic or economic interests in Ireland.
- The British government says it is prepared to negotiate openly with Sinn Fein.

Will there be peace?

The question of a lasting peace is still quite open. The question marks are still quite numerous and negotiations are still taking place behind closed doors.

Compared to the negotiations the British had with the IRA in 1972 and 1975, one can easily see a big difference. Since 1975, the IRA has been declared dead a greater number of times. But constantly proved its ability to continuously continue the fight. The IRA is constantly evolving. Both politically and militarily, knowledge has increased significantly since the 70s. This has forced the British government to realize that a military war against the people of Ireland can never be successful.

The IRA has deliberately moved the war from the ghettos of Northern Ireland to the British mainland. Thus, by striking at prestigious, economically significant targets, it has galvanized the British bourgeoisie to support the government for a withdrawal from Ireland.

Recently, British Prime Minister John Major said in a press conference in Ireland that “...trading on the High Street has gone up by 6% in the last month”. And in that statement we can find the real reason why the British want to withdraw from Ireland.

The British government has been forced to the negotiating table. And most indications are that the British are now only looking for a way out of Ireland with their “honor” intact, so to speak.

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Paul Andersson