Israel's concentration

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OF SOLIDARINY = New pampnier from ine socianst rorum jor sournern AJca l olidarity. 90p plus 20p postage. available via Socialist oners was published in including many of the few doctors in the country esto of the Al-Anzar pris- As the Israeli army occupied Lebanon, they marched off hundreds of prisoners Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. in Haifa ISRAEL DOESN'T recúgnise the Palestinians and Lebanese captured in its invasion of Lebanon as brisoners of war. Nor does it even bring them to military trial as it is doing with resistance militants inside Palestine.

For more than seven months now many. thousands have been held, denied any of the human rights provided by basic international conventions.even a full list of names of those imprisoned has not been given to the Red Cross. The PLO, on its side, has made a point of giving all ruW nghts to its eight Israeli soldiers captured as it did formerly with others during the harsh days of the blockades of Beirut. Nur are all the Palestinians and Lebanese held necessarily fighters. Some are political activists, others are doctors, teachers, social workers etc.

Al-Anzar, where some 5000 are held today is not a prison, nor a prisoner of war camp. It could only be called concentration camp.

On January 18, a manifBeirut. It tells the story of daily torture, constant hunger, lack or water, cold and lack of elementary medical treatment.

Many prisoners got badly ill and some died. one of them a 9 year old called Imad. The manifesto goes on to describe the repression of any protest at the harsh conditions.

On September 28 many of the prisoners had been 'wounded as they had been shot at. On December 3 Omar abu-al-gol and Muhamed Diab death.

At tha and were of their manifesto, the prisoners turn to the world's public opinion and to all well-wishers to act to put an end to save the lives of thousands of prisoners in Israeli prisons and camps.

Villagers from Al-Anzar found a mass grave with the bodies of 15 youth that were imprisoned in the Al-. Anzar camp. Isreau occup- a so so an Tranali nasan ation forces threatened the village if they disclosed it. the Negev began a partial hunger strike to protest the 'constant hunger' to which they are subject in prison. They say their strike will continue until their demands are met. They are eating bread and drinking water out rerusing au over food.' In another recent incident in the camp, guards shot and killed three 1001t lillad prisoners and wounded others. consumer boycott of C Cola, which resulted i drop in sales of 50%. ' The company was soon force d to reinstate its employees.

A key question in 198 3 is whether the Stroess sner regime can stop the rer cession in the Paraguayan ‹ economy. After 8 years of : an annual average ( FDP growth of 9%, last year witnessed a drop of 2.5% - the worst figures for 30 year The elections, on the ot ther hand, were just a cosm etic exercise. In the words of the leading Febreri sta, Euclides Acevado, they are just one big yawn. Evi erybody knows the res ults beforehand... 2, public rallies dres 300,000 or more.

No negotiations hav ever been held; mainl because of pressure fror the government. The strik is still solid, with 60 mill shut down and losse estimated by the employer at £700 million.

Solidarity messages an financial aid should b sent to: Maharashtr Girni Kamgar Union, 25 Janata Colony, Ghatkopa (East), Bombay, 400071 India.

*Information from a article by Amar Jesani an Kunal. Chattopadhyay i Intercontinental Pres: January 17 1983.

A QUESTION 90p Tence Welch li-A . - г.

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¡şłaj Last year's Labour Party conference voted for a ban on plastic bullets - but against calls for troops out and self-determination for Ireland.

Supporting the Catholic revolt is the only consistent position for socialists, argues JOHN NIALL POWER, secretary of the Labour Committee on Ireland, spoke Lunts about the 'Ban Plastic Bullets' ence on February 26 The original idea was suggested by Manchester LCI after the Labour Party conference decision last October to launch a campaign to ban plastic bullets.

LCI nationally, others, then agreed to support the conference.

We soon got a wide range of sponsors, including Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn, and many MPs.

The most important reason for the conference is the refusal of the Labour Party leadership to act on last October's resolution. Just minutes after the vote then, Don Concannon was interviewed on the radio and discounted the result, saying that he as Labour Party front bench spokesperson on Ireland would ignore it.

Since then he has often spoken in favour of plastic bullets.

The NEC, too, has refused even sponsor our conference.

But there is widespread opposition to plastic bullets. 14 have now been killed by and hundreds here. And.

in Britain they are being stockpiled following the riots in 1981.

Ubviously the key target of the conference is trade union and Labour Party activists, but with the emphasis on delegates who can then report back.

We have been able to win a far wider audience for a discussion on Ireland than has been possible before.

NUPE, South Wales NUM, many AST'MS districts no.120 February 71983 Page It will also provide a useful and positive profile for the LCI. We'll be active at the conference with a leaflet, bookstall, and recruiting desk.

Thirdly, we'll be stressing the importance of reportbacks_ by delegates, This can extend the discussion, and also lead to resolutions to trade union and Labour Party conferences.

Linked to this is the fight to get rid of Concannon, and to build up to the next Labour Party conference.

Speakers will include Owen Carron, Kathleen Stewart (whose son Brian was killed by a plastic bullet), Jonathan Rosenhead of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, Mary Holland, Clive Soley, and Rosemary Sales: But we hope that the main bulk of the conference will be discussion time.

There'll be a fully equipped creche. and a buffet lunch.

Apply for delegates' credentials now: £3 from Plastic Bullets Conference Box 15, 164-6 Hanging Ditch, Manchester M3 4BN. Observers are also welcome. The conference is on Saturday February 26, starting 11am at UMIST, Barnes Wallis Building, Sackville St., Manchester 1 SOCIALIST Organiser has consistently - though not uncritically - supported the Catholic revolt in Northern Ireland.

From the 1960s Britain has aimed to create a new set of political structures in Northern Ireland. For now this means beating down the Catholic revolt, and thereby placating the Protestant majority (65%) of the Six County population. It involves defending and sustaining the Partition. 'settlement" 1920 which created the artificial Six County state.

For tity years the Six Counties had a vile, discri minatory: and oppressive system of Protestant sectarian rule over the Catholic minority (35% - bigger as a percentage of the Six County population than the Protestants would be of all Ireland). For 14 years it has been in a permanent state of incipient civil war.

Throughout it has been a communal beargarden, in which the Protestant-Catholic antagonisms could only be intensified.

Britain has maintained this state, alternating between "concessions' to the Catholics (1969,, 19724) and attempts to throw the full military and political weight of the UK at them - by internment, 1971; by withdrawal of political status by the Labour government, 1976; by the system of permanent harrying of the Catholic population by house 'searches' (wreckings); by special laws; and by beating and torture of the Catholics who actively or passively support the IRA.

British strategy • cannot succeed. The Catholics have refused to be beaten down. 50 years as second-class citizens within the Orangeruled ghetto steeled and hardened the attitude of a large section of the Catholics into an unbreakable determination that their revolt will not subside or be beaten down, bought off, or cajoled away, short of their goal. From this also comes the ruthlessness of their military campaign.

The Protestants refuse to settle for anything less than restoration of Protestant supremacist rule.

The Six County state was custom-built to give a compact Protestant majority permanent rule. But now the old Protestant supremacy has been made unworkable by the Catholic revolt. A modified version of the Six County state is made impossible by the Protestants. rejection of it. (and by the nostilty to it of a sizeable section of the Catholics). O'MAHONY rajuicu unuy...

The whole Six County entity is now obviously politically unviable. The fires of sectarian civil war have been stoked white hot, not put out, over the 13½ years since Britain put a tight military scaffolding around the Orange state to stop it crumbling.

The central argument in support of what Britain is doing in Northern Ireland, and one which confuses many people, is that the Six County state has a democratic right to exist because inere is a clear majority within it which wants that. This argument was enshrined in the Labour Government's 1949 Ireland Act and in the British government decision to hold a ten-yearly Six County referendum on the constitutional position of Northern Ireland (the second one is due in 1983).

But it is nonsense. The Six County state is an artificial creation with borders deliberately drawn by Britain — against the wishes of three quarters of the Irish people - to give a permanent Protestant majority. The only majority rule that majority wants is Protestant sectarian rule.

Since March 1972 Britain has refused to agree to this. It has allowed only one role for the majority - to veto any change in the state unit that broke down back in 1969.

The British government itself has not recognised the democratic validity of the Six County unit for internal Northern Ireland politics. When Ian Paisley and others demand 'democracy' and 'majority rule' in the Six Counties, logic is on their side against the British government - if the Six County unit has democratic validity.

It doesn't. The framework for securing the democratic rights of the Protestant community in Ireland is an all-Irish framework, within which the people of Ireland can arrange their own affairs free from ' British interference and from the profoundly undemocratic and artificial Six County unit carved out by Britain in 1920.

The armed struggle of the IRA is denounced by many as 'terrorism' . But, whether we would advise these methods or not, the Catholic community, for 50 years imprisoned and kept down by naked sectarian force and then for the last 14 years subjected to the harassment of the British Army, has a right to fight back. -The armed offensive of the Republicans grew out of the mass Catholic civil rights movement when that movement came up against Protestant pogroms and the taking of control by the British Army in 1969. It has had mass support - the recent electoral success of the Provisional IRA probably under-represented that support within the Catholic community.

Without the armed Catholic offensive of the early '70s, the Protestant sectarian system of rule in the Six Counties would not have been destroyed.

The only solution is to break the Six County framework and seek the broader framework of a united Ireland. The Catholics, as well as being the most oppressed, are also the most progressive force in this situation.

The fact that their revolt antagonises the masses of Protestants is something built into the sectarian state at its foundations.

Almost everywhere, oppressed minorities begin with the desire for unity with the surrounding society on the basis of equality and democracy. But that is just what is not on offer. The choice then is to wait patiently or to struggle.

The struggle should - if socialists lead it - be conducted so as to minimise the exacerbation. But when struggles like that of the oppressed Catholics erupt, under whatever leadership and guided by whatever conceptions, they are entitled to the support of socialists and democrats.

For socialists in Britain -the long-time oppressor of Ireland, the main creator of the Six County state, and the country whose army is in occupation, this is a matter of basic principle.

Justice in Northern Ireland is fundamentally on the side of the Catholics. WithIrawal of British troops, anc victory for the goal of the Catholics and of their Republican parties and militias, to break down the artificial Six County framework and to unite Ireland, is the only way to end the confict.

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Trade Unions ImSoutmatrice

Bob Fine