Before the last 10 hunger strikers died in Ireland back in the 80's, there was a dirt strike in Britain's Long Kesh concentration camp in occupied Ireland. The leading churchman in Ireland at that time, was Cardinal O'Fiach, who visited the prisoners on July 31st, 1978, and condemned the conditions, when he said: “Having spent the whole of Sunday in the prison, I was shocked at the inhuman conditions prevailing in H-Blocks 3,4 and 5 where over 300 prisoners were incarcerated. One would hardly allow an animal to remain in such conditions, let alone a human being. The nearest approach to it that I have seen was the spectacle of hundreds of homeless people living in sewer pipes in the slums of Calcutta. The stench and filth in some cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls, was almost unbelievable. In two of them I was unable to speak for the fear of vomiting. The prisoners’ cells are without beds, chairs or tables. They sleep on mattresses on the floor, and in some cases I noticed they were quite wet. They have no covering except towel or blanket, no books, newspapers or reading material except the Bible (even religious magazines have been banned since), no pens or writing material, or TV, or radio, no hobbies or handcrafts, no exercise or recreation. They are locked in their cells for almost the whole of every day and some of them have been in this condition for more than a year and a half.”
The prisoners lived like that for up to five years before Bobby Sands and nine of his comrades, gave their young lives, in the only form of protest left to them, a hunger strike.
Today in Ireland despite a much publicized Bad Friday agreement, hyped with a media, controlled by the British intelligence services and the BBC world service, the conditions in Occupied Ireland's remaining concentration camp, have returned to similar conditions, described above.The media hyped leadership, that sold a surrender to its people, as a peace package, has forgotten their working class roots, while pandering to a gombeen class, found in most consumerist societies,while ignoring the H-Block mandate of Bobby Sands and his comrades, that brought them to power.In the 800 years of resistance to the British occupation of Ireland, British prisons and concentration camps, have held thousands upon thousands of Irish political prisoners, many without trial.
Today the usual British conveyor belt system, to lock up any form of dissent to British occupation, is still in place, where prisoners are put away for scores of years without a trial by a jury, on the word of British agents. A few weeks ago the brother of Maireid Farrell who was shot in cold blood in Gibraltar along with two of her companions, all unarmed was put away for years to await a trial without a jury, on the word of a British policeman who simply stated, that he might sympathetic to Irish political dissidents.Anyone vaguely familiar with Ireland's struggle for freedom, knows that the return of the present prison persecution, yet again of Irish political prisoners of conscience, is the spark that returns Occupied Ireland to outright war against the British like the murders of Bloody Sunday did or the deaths of the last ten Hunger strikers who were on a similar protest.Again, anyone familiar with Ireland's struggle, knows that a return to full scale military conflict without this issue and the issue of British occupation resolved in a genuine manner.
The last Hunger strike, proves that if you back Irish Political prisoners of conscience into a corner, without an option for redress, they will go all the way. There are various careerist politicians, posturing and making grunts of synthetic support but the POW's are relying on the people of no property on the street, to resolve the issue.Other than violence there is only one option available to resolve all of these issues with Irish interests protected. The Irish international diaspora in the US, Australia and Britain numbering 70 million worldwide must be mobilized. It is a mammoth task that can only be accomplished with co-ordination and dedication but with modern technology such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc., it is possible, with a focussed, dedicated, unified, core group, that will not compromise the interests of Ireland like its politicians worldwide have. You can be certain the group will face all sorts of attempted sabotage.
Throughout the troubles in Ireland over the last phase, there have been many calls for a peaceful way forward, this is the only option. The Jews for example in Britain, US and abroad are punching way above their weight, in the big numbers of elected representative in those countries, despite a much smaller population, relative to the Irish. The Holocaust is given as the primary motivator for this, with the death of 6 million people, well Ireland lost more than 6 million people in the Holocaust of the Great Hunger engineered by the British, more than the Jews lost.Its simply not enough to make hollow, vacuous calls for peace in Ireland, without giving prisoners and activist of conscience a choice or an option!
If we truly are sincere about peace in Ireland and have an iota of love or nature left in us for our country, then we must mobilize, NOW !.I want anyone reading this to carefully consider this option or its alternative of thousand mored lives being lost in endless struggle. My page on Facebook for this matter is;
AllVoicesAllIrish International.
It will take dedicated people, along with discipline and organization to make this happen. It will also require people of integrity, along with an interactive membership to keep the group on track for peaceful Irish interests, without again selling Ireland short, as has happened far too often in the past.
So its up to you, a chara, to help make it happen but I do not want to hear any more empty, heartless, brainless, calls for peace in the absence of the necessary work, to honour the people of conscience left in our country, without giving them an option to realize their dreams peacefully!
United we Stand ! Divided we Fall!!
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