DON'T LET HIM DIE!
robbea or a few headlines in July.
So socculates o recent article in the, Financial Times, predicting closUre of major steel plant and thousands MOe cies when British Steel Corporation boss.
MacGregor reports on his corporate plan in the Plans for resistance were laid on 21 March at a steel solidarity conference organised by the Scunthorpe Steel Action Group. "Fightback or die" was the message of the conference, attended by 100 steel activists and their supporters strikers in the H Blocks at Long Kesh jail, is to stand in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election which takes place on April.
McAliskey that she will withdraw from the elecBobby give an opportunity for the nationalist population in the unite around a single campaign.
His hunger strike, refusal of the authorities to give any concessions …on mand for political status, started on 1 March. Below we publish an account of Bobby Sands' work reprinted produced by central London Troops Out Movement. It shows the real Bobby Sands - not a 'rerrorist' or man', but a political militant fighting for justice.
BOBBY SAND'S birthday, 9 March, was the ninth dav of his hunger strike. He was 27 years old. First arrested when he was 18, he has spent only six months in freedom in the last eight years. keen reader and trade unionist. In the Hi Block he became a writer and poet. Above all he is a dedicated Republican socialist Bobby was born in Rathcoole, a predominantly Protestant district north of Belfast. He was keen on sports, winning a lot of medals, and ran for Protestant clubs. When he was 16 years old, he started work as an apprenuce coacn bunder and tional Union of Vehicle Builders and the ATGWU.
une roubles were to chaneemslic. night a dustbin was hurled through the Sands' front window and shots en moving WOLOOK. estate on the outskirts of West Belfast.
Soon, Bobby was threatened at gunpoint at work, ana told ne would be snot l ne conunued working He joined the Republican remarkable semi-autobiographical article smuggled out of the H Blocks and published in Republican News he wrote, 'I had seen too many homes wrecked, and sons arrested. neighbours nurt, murdered. Too much gas, most of it our own people's. At eighteen and a half 1 Joinea ine rrovos...
'My life now centred round sleepless nights and standbys, dodging the Brits and calming nerves to go out on operations. But the people stood by us.
The people not only opened the doors of their homes to us to hearts to us. I learned that without the people we could not survive and I knew that I owed them everything.
In October 1972 he was arrested. Four handguns were found in a house he was staying in and he was charged with possession. Although the guns were in poor condition he was sentenced in early 1973 to five years.
He spent the next three years in the cages of long Kesh with the special category prisoners. Here he taught himself Irish, which he was later to teach 1o other blanket men in the H Blocks.
Socialist Challenge 2 April 1981 South Wales, Sheffield, Corby and Scunthorpe.
Workshops discussed the problems of organising this fightback. ThroughOUR une country steelworkers being frightthreats of liquidation and the refusal of national steel readers organise industrial action. one of the hunger Bernadette has already announced candidature will constituency to the prisoners' delife and political from a broadsheet gunBobby was a sportsman, one be aLale uilt were fired into the house. They Movement.
friends shootings, and blood Twinbrook. lend a hand, but they opened their ment.
Danny do it.
The conference agreed to commit ourselves to a campaign in the plants and ¡ever or une stee unions for national inaustilal against and redundanCes Shop floor bulletins, like those already produced by Llanwern, Port Talbot and Scunthorpe action groups are to be utilis•Age 27 Released in 1976, Bobby returned to his family in Here he became a community activist, while remaining involved with the Republican Move.
Morrison, editor /Republican News and friend of "Twinbrook is realv punished bv Lisburn Borough Council because it's a Catholic estate. They refuse to empty the bins and they won't provide amenities for Bobby was involved in the Tenants' Association trying to collect money for a youth club for the area. He is a very political, radical person.' Six brief months later Bobby was arrested again. There had been a bomb attack on the Balmoral Fured to mobilise this opposition and a follow up conWas agreed coordinate these efforts across ine country Unity and solidarity WCIC workshops were held also on women's action for solida rity and the place of community action. A resoluthe conference stressed the
IRISH
HUNGER STRIKER
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tion and that 'it will be an honour' to sign Sands' election forms. Sands'
BOBBY SANDS! •Union: National Union of Vehicle Builders and ATGWU • 'On the blanket' since 1977 • Began hunger strike on 1st March