No32 May 1981 20p BRITAIN Avenge Bobby Sands! Smash HBlockl Troops out now! II I '. It took 66 days to homes and blame the kill Bobby Sands, con­ Protestants ('IRA Plans demned to a slow and to Burn Belfast', read painful death by the the Daily Express head­ arrogant butchers of line). Westminster. In Parlia­ In Belfast and Derry ment, the announcement the population, Catho­ that 'Robert Sands, Es­ lic and Protestant, has quire, the Member for prepared for a bloody Fermanagh and South Ty­ showdown. A few days rone' was dead met with before Sands' death the an obscene solidarity Protestant paramilitary of Labour and Tory with Ulster Defense Associa­ Margaret Thatcher's re­ tion held a show of fusal to budge an inch strength in the Shank­ on his just, elementary ill Road; the next demands. But around the morning two families world it met with dem­ reportedly moved from onstrations of outrage Bombay Street near the and indignation at this Falls. As an Observer calculated, imperialist (3 May) correspondent murder. In Catholic noted, 'memories of West Belfast, the an­ fire-bombed houses in nouncement that Bobby the mixed fringes 12 Sands, officer of the years ago are still Irish Republican Army, vivid'. Republican was dead was met with Citizen's Defence Com­ the beat~ng of ~ustbin mittees have prepared lids, the construction contingency plans in of street barricades West Belfast. House­ and the rattle of Bri­ holds have stocked up tish rifle fire. North- on bread, bottled gas, ern Ireland stands ready to explode. tary honours two days later. But with nightfall tinned goods, powdered milk. Already in mid­ Bobby Sands died a martyr in the struggle ag- the rioting started again, and in the coming April, Derry more and more resembled 1969 with ainst brutal imperialist oppression. The prolet- days everyone knows that it will escalate. barricades and petrol bombs against the army and ariat will remember him, his death will be Three thousand demonstrated in Paris to pro- police every day. Following the martyrdom of avenged. In the US, East Coast dockers announced test Sands' death; another thousand marched in Bobby Sands, they will continue. a 24-hour boycott of all British shipping. In Athens. In Dublin security was tightened outside Ireland there is talk of a general strike the the British Embassy while thousands queued be- Years of mythmaking out the window day of his funeral. In Britain the labour move- hind black flags at the General Post Offic~ to When the voters of Fermanagh and South Tyrone ment must sweep aside the, treacherous leaders sign a book of mourning and 2000 marched to the elected Sands their ~w in a bye-election on who condone this imperialist atrocity with mas­ Irish parliament. American demonstrators marched 9 April, the government's long propaganda cam­ sive demonstrations of protest against this in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. paign to 'prove' the IRA were isolated fanatics vicious ruling class. The British government's us imperialist politicians, keeping one eye on was demolished forever. This was a sweeping, terror and murder in Northern Ireland, -- carried their Irish-American constituents and worried well-nigh unanimous vote by the Catholic commu­ out with the full support of the Labour traitors that Thatcher's hard-line policies will provoke nity against imperialist oppression. The full -- is vile, repugnant and criminal. GET THE a major crisis in Northern Ireland, expressed pressure of imperialist opinion and scare­ ARMED BUTCHERS OUT NOW! FOR THE IMMEDIATE, UN­ their 'concern' and 'regret' at the death. mongering had been unleashed on the voters of CONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF THE BRITISH ARMY! But even as three other Republican prisoners this border constituency, contested in a SMASH'THE IMPERIALIST TORTURE CA~WS! AVENGE on hunger strike for political status wait be­ straight fight between Sands and Protestant BOBBY SANDS! hind Sands in a grisly queue, Hargaret Thatcher Unionist leader Harry West. West placed adverts The British press claims it was 'suicide', vows to stand firm. British troops continue to in the local Catholic press reminding readers of bu~ all West Belfast knows the truth. Cars shoot down and kill unarmed H Block protesters the Pope's words against the 'men of violence'. blared their horns in the early hours of 5 May in the streets of Belfast an~ Derry. Dozens of The imperialist propaganda mill put it about as to awaken residents with the news that Sands had protest leaders have been arrested in Gestapo­ a fact that 'an IRA gun' had murdered a Protest­ died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, and within style dawn raids. And the Loyal Labour Opposi­ ant census, taker on the eve of the poll, even hours barricades were thrown up throughout the tion backs Thatcher, Humphrey Atkins and the though the Republicans flatly denied responsibi­ area. Youths hurled stones and petrol bombs at army to the hilt, crying 'No surrender! Defeat lity for this atrocity. the hated army and RUC patrols. An army post at the terrorists!' The army's Spearhead batallion Imperialism's Labour lieutenants pitched in the top of Springfield Road was beseiged for stands ready for despatch across the water to to do their bit as well. In an unprecedented hours by angry crowds. Troops firing plastic the Six Counties and all police leave has been polling day appeal from Westminster, Labour bullets and live ammunition injured scores, at cancelled. While international media correspon- spokesman on Northern Ireland Don 'Concannon told least one seriously. With daybreak, the street dents cram Belfast hotels, Her Majesty's Govern- voters that they had a 'unique opportunity to battles wound down and an uneasy calm hung over ment has provided a steady stream of black denounce the men of violence'. 'A vote for Mr the city as preparations were made for Sands' propaganda, including outrageous accounts of al- Sands', said this servile toady, 'is a vote of funeral, to be held with full Republican mili- leged IRA preparations to set fire to Catholic continued on page 6 the right, and in particular US imperialism has set out to 'morally' and politically rearm fol­ The unfolding-.dy'namic of late Pabloism lowing its humiliation in Vietnam. From Jimmy Carter's 'human rights' crusade through to Ronald Reagan's choice of Central America as the • • front line for the struggle against 'Communist subversion', deep economic crisis international­ • ly has gone hand-in-hand with stepped-up anti­ 1MB • to r Sovietism and the threat of imperialist war. How long can it go on? In early April Tony Benn declared that he state is a gross travesty of any pretension to In a new issue of International (May 1981), would stand against Denis Healey for the post of Marxism. the IMG's occasional theoretical journal, Alan Labour Party deputy leader next autumn. Reac­ And Bepn's calls for full employment, better Freeman takes the British Socialist Workers tions were predictable right across the politi­ social services and the like are all premised on Party of Tony Cliff to task for not joining his cal spectrum. Establishment pundits saw further a future Labour government adopting his 'alter­ organisation's enthusiasm over Bennery and its evidence of the unfitness of the Labour Party as native economic strategy' -- a strategy of capi­ headlong dive towards the Labour Party. In vain: a stable gov"ernmental al terna ti ve. Tory gutter talist economic protectionism. His call for Cliff & Co long ago sold their soul to the bour­ rags once again sa"w the threat of a left-wing withdrawal from the EEC, far from reflecting op­ gOisie, but they have carved out a sort of niche takeover! Various union bureaucrats and Labour position to an anti-Soviet economic adjunct of as a small, organisationally independent, viru­ parliamentarians howled about the damage done to NATO, is part of the same little England chauv­ lentlyanti-Soviet 'militant' syndicalist party unity. But the most nauseating spectacle inist perspective. Through import controls and competitor to the Labour 'lefts'. But the IHG is was the rush of fake-revolutionaries seeking a parallel measures Benn seeks to shore up centrist, and by virtue of that incapable of any piece of the action as Benn's self-appointed decaying British capitalism against its competi­ consistent perspective and orientation. With fhe campaign managers. Few were more ardent than the tors, dragging the proletariat behind its ex­ demise of the 'new mass vanguard', it has been International Marxist Group (IHG). ploiters for the purpose of trade war against reduced to clutching at one after another new Ever in search of a new 'main chance' to its class brothers in other countries. Such a 'mass movement' at an increasingly furious catapult them towards mass influence, the IMG's programme is not 'inadequate' -- it is counter­ pace. Socialist Challenge has been plumping for Benn posed to the communist perspective of a social­ It is not surprising that in the present cli­ in one way or another for some time. But Benn's ist Britain in a socialist United States of mate the reformist wing of the USec centred on the US SWP has been on the ascendancy inter­ nationally. In countries where the old Hansenite/ Mandelite feud was settled by a fusion of com­ peting sections (Canada, Australia), the cen­ trists have been gobbled up and indigestible ele­ ments regurgitated. The disorientation of the centrists in the face of a right-wing Cold War climate is complemented by the organisational decline of the USec. The major split in 1979 by Argentine political chameleon and adventurer Nahuel Moreno -- leading to a rotten bloc with Pierre Lambert's Organisation Communiste Inter­ nationaliste and the creation of a competing 'Fourth International' has sharply undercut the pulling power of the USec as the 'Fourth Inter­ national'.