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Since
the Bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York
during the Autumn of 2001, those in the capitalist
world and elsewhere who are opposed to the world's
national liberation struggles have attempted to brand
all national liberation movements as terroristic.
They have cynically used the emotional reaction to
the bombings as a means of supporting illegal regimes
throughout the globe when freedom seeking people threaten
their global capitalist interests. In some countries
people will hesitate to act out aspects of their strategies
of liberation in fear of being branded as terrorists
due to the scare mongering of George Bush and his
British lap dog - Tony Blair. In fact, some freedom-seeking
peoples may find in the future, because of the Bush
factor, American troops facing them in the name of
rooting out all terrorists. That is why it is important
that the integrity of authentic liberation struggles
be uppermost in the minds of the participants and
that they seek at all times to uphold the nobility
of their cause.
If the people of North America had not succeeded against
the British a few hundred years ago, and it was the
reality that what has become the USA today was still
under British rule, then only a fool would claim that
there was no justification morally or otherwise for
an armed struggle to place the country in the hands
of the people. Which raises the question of what type
of armed act is justified in the legitimate pursuit
of national freedom? Perhaps this question is better
answered by looking at the concept of terrorism. Any
act of physical force which threatens the lives of
innocent people is the basis of terrorism. Arising
from such acts, maiming and the death of the innocent
or non-combatants can be the result. I believe that
it is counterproductive. We must at all times seek
the support of the ordinary people, for it is them
and them alone we seek to liberate. Without their
support the guerilla movement cannot succeed and anything
that does not warrant that support is negative and
self-defeating.
In fact, one of the unwelcome aspects of the republican
campaign over the last three or four decades of struggle
was the reality of terroristic acts experienced by
the ordinary people. Many innocent victims entered
our homes on the evening TV news and one wondered
if such slaughter of the innocent was worthy of an
Irish freedom movement. Yes, mistakes can be made
in a war situation but the number of civilian casualties
was inexcusable.
That is why it is my contention that the use of the
car bomb or the fire bomb, etc., where the innocent
are at risk, has no part in the continuing struggle
and that the infantile behaviour of hoax bombs at
railway property is no way of winning the people's
support. Or for that matter the blowing up of a hotel
where the local community regard it as their 'own'.
In addition, do organisers of such futility realise
the risk to their volunteers and the innocent? Do
they not consider the amount of energy and time used
to accomplish what at the end of the day isolates
them from their community, and thus providing for
our detractors the ammunition by which they can condemn
the legitimacy of our struggle?
I recall many years ago a conversation that I had
with the late Seámus Costello, who at the time
was the Adjutant General of the Irish Republican Army
and who eventually founded with others the Republican
Socialist Movement, in which he stated that during
active service in the campaign of 1956-62, while resting
in a dug-out, he began to question the acts of blowing
up telephone boxes and wee border bridges. Seámus
then recognised the futility of such deeds; and I
contend that the freedom fighters of the present must
do the same, as well as question aspects of their
operations.
Now in relation to the justification for armed struggle
in Ireland against the British administration and
their armed forces, it prevails within the reality
of that administration and armed presence. It is a
presence which is contrary to justice and thus is
illegal. That is why the referendum around the Belfast
Agreement is itself illegal and bereft of justice.
For illegal structures helped to administer the referendum:
thus how can the referendum be acknowledged as legal
if the basis itself is illegal?
To clarify one important point: by armed struggle
I mean the physical act of a guerilla army against
the illegal occupation forces and their political
masters not the terrorist-type acts which in due course
fill the graveyards with innocent victims and isolate
the freedom fighter from the people upon whom they
depend for their very existence and survival.
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