H-Block appeal to conference Troops ord

Scan page 4

garded as an illegitimate and alien state. - suffered great perseuction in almost all spheres of life... job discrimination, housing discrimination, gerrymandering, multiple votes for Unionists, emergency repressive laws, a sectarian police force.

We protesting Republican prisoners in H-Blocks believe it is important. for you British socialists to realise and accept that for fifty years British governments volerated and bolstered up this regime.

How could it have been allowed to live so long in its prejudiced, polluted and blatantly sectarian form? ant being doomed to a lifetime of unemployment, social hardship and slums.

Lack of concern, lack of thought, lack of courage, all are the ingredients of bipartisanship, and right up to this minute bipartisanship fuels the sense of second class citizenship felt by the minority in Northern Ireland.

The present conflict finds its roots in this legacy of injustice and bipartisanship. Only in a socialist Irish Republic will the historical and social divisions that plague the Irish national be eradicated and replaced with true justice and peace. Ireland can effectively dismiss the political non-jury Diplock Courts with the absurd cliche, 'We accept the Diplock Courts are unorthodox, but what is the alternative?' Or is it not embarrassing when the British Labour Party allows draconian laws through Westminster without even a facade of opposition?

Victims

Can you not see that the men dying on hunger strike to retain their honour, dignity and self-respect are the victims of these iniquitous, totally politicallyWe prisoners are very aware of the fact that those who bear initial responsibility for the initiation of the ignoble 'criminalisation' policy are present at this conference today.

They know and everyone here knows that the inception of the criminalisation policy was a tactical rather than a moral decision.

They are the men who sanctioned the use of brutality and degradation here in H-Blocks. They are the men who shout 'hear, hear' the loudest when Maggie Thatcher allows another Irish Republican Socialist prisoner to die in ness. We appeal to you to study carefully our policy statements in which we clearly showed that we sought neither elitist nor preferential treatment, nor the right to control the prison.

Lastly, we appeal to you for their integrity and of your socialist comrades who face death at present on hunger-strike.

You can be instrumental in saving the lives in Long Kesh and in the streets of Northern Ireland, and not only we, but a united nationalist population . in Ireland, pray you do so. UNION leaders in a show of strength wheeled out their card votes to crush a motion on Ireland which called for an end to Labour's bipartisan policy with the Tories.

Milder

The motion - the milder of two composites and which also one-sidedly condemned "terrorism" and "violence" - secured the support of the vast majority of the CLPs and appeared carried on a show of hands. But the call went up for a card vote and it was heavily defeated.

Also defeated was motion calling for support to the Irish hunger strikers.

Brent delegate Merle Amory stressed how "the heroic deaths of Bobby Sands MP and subsequent hunger strikers finally brought the issue home to the people of Britain.

Later, a packed meeting of the Labour Committee on Ireland, addressed by anti-H Block MP Owen Carron, demonstrated the growing commitment of the conference rank and file to the Irish question, which must be taken firmly into the trade unions.

Scan page 5

Socialist Organiser, Thursday 1 October 1981 Page 5

----- pull-quotes -----

to think of your ten comrad- es who gave their very lives