week Couri orouen inen CIne District Auditor. He had claimea that it was unlawful for the coun have an aepenaent pay settlement jor loca. courei workers, curime ine rura strike in the winter of 19/8/19 other way, councillor: some defectors torne as mel ironically as nen Livingstone - would have liable . surcharge £950,000. The District Auditor hai brought the case in the 'interests of the plor,o00 legal cosas who now nave 1o 0o District auditors it seems can't be surchargAlthough judgmen reverses the recent trend of courts to openly side with the ruling class judge made overtly political intervention Seven days borough Justice Umroa decided that these are mar erection But as voters go the polls they might like to take note of one other sull COLACION Camden had not been swayed by 'philanthropic They had been subjectea dustrial victory pressure the Camaen councillors is really the victory of ine council workers inre years ago fighting for a decent MICHAEL FOOT and his friend on the National Executive Commit tee of the Labour Party have avoid Bob outrem condemnuion u Mellis? e permonese MP nas declared his support for at least one the official Labour Part weel the nevie reruseu stituency, Peter Tatchell, the NEC seems very reluctant to take the ap propriate action openly and defiantly breaches the COAYE RIOR Socialist Challenge 6 May 1982 page?
RONALD REAGAN your life: US President, propagator of nuclear Europe, butcher of Salvador, prop of right wing dictators from Guatemala to Argentina, and from Turkey to the Philippines, opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment for women, unionist, enemy of workers everywhere, and supporter of Thatcher's war in the Malvinas/Falklands.
Yes, British imperialism's best ally has 'come off the fence' and given its firm support to Britain's hostilities against Argentina. Much as it upset Reagan to dump his pet dictator in Argentina, he had no second thoughts about backing wal.
After all Reagan and Thatcher have a lot in common - monetarist austerity policies to attack the working class, war-mongering against the oppressed peoples of the world, be they Irish, Argentinian Salvadorean, and support for nuclear madness.
So the one-time actor in crummy movies threw the weight of US imperialism against the uppity Argentinian Junta that dared to challenge Reagan's favourite ally.
Fortunately, opposition
Reagan is growing. Reagan Reception Committees have sprung up across And now there is even a Yanks Against Reagan group to show that not every American Reagan's deadly policies.
The Chile Solidarity Committee has announced details of its Festival for Peace and scheduled on Tuesday 8 June as an alternative forum to Reagan's speech to parliament. The festival in Central Hall Westminster from 1lam to 9pm will include speakers, stalls, tions, music, humour, bookstalis and displays organisers include Chile Committee, Anti-Apartheid, AmnesInternational and El Salvador Solidaritv.
Meanwhile. Labour MPs John Golding, Roger Stott and John MacWilliam are under pressure from their sponsoring the engineers, to boycott Reagan's visit. Metropolitan North west London branch of the POEU has circulated a petition to all its branches calling on the trio to boycott Reagan's visit and to call for the whole parliamentary party to do the same.
Reception PO Box 51, London SWIO. National CND demo, June.
Picket US Embassy, Monday 7 life and •I WAS - this is predominantly war in El Twinbrook intimidated gunpoint.
anti-trade many houses much which he was bloody Kesr prisoners Thatcher's Evolved Lauses.
being El interrogated supports •Freedom exhibiworkshops, Solidarity post office Committee, Sunday born Rathcoole, Protestant area of Belfast. I was keen on sports and wor a lot of medals for Protestant clubs. In y my family was intimidated Twinbrook home and versons of outskirts Soon after this was trom my workplace at 'Shortly after this I joined the Republican movement. I had seen too wrecked, fathers and sons arrested, neighbours hurt, shooting and most of it our own people's.
In October 1972, at the age of 18, Bobby Sands was arrested for posses; staying. Sentenced in early 1973 to tive years, he spent the next three years in the cages of Long WILl 'special category Released in 1976 he became inin the Twinbrook Tenants for a local youth club among other within six montas ne was ali rested again with five other men after stopped near the scene of bomb explosion on the outskirts of All six men were brutally the notorious Castlereagh centre.
He joined the 'blanket' protest against prison conditions in 1977, and volunteered to lead last year's hunger strike for the five demands: the right to wear their own clothes, the right to refrain from prison work, the right to free association, restoration of full ONE YEAR AGO British imperialism brutally murdered Bobby Sands MP, in its war against the Irish people. As Britain launches war against another dependent country, Argentina, it is fitting that the labour movement should remember the Irish hunger strikers, in particular.
Challenge recalls the story of Bobby Sands, his This writings, and recalls the bloody remission of sentences, and the right to organise recreational and educational facilities and to receive one visit, letter and parcel per week.
On 1 March 1981 he went on hunger strike. Five weeks later he was elected MP by more than voters in Fermanagh and Tyrone in an extraordinary rebuff to the Thatcher government's claim that he was a common criminal, not a political prisoner.
Despite massive international proSanas M die on 5 Milay 1981. More Thatcher finally than 100,000 people, almost a fifth of the entire nationalist population the North of Ireland, marched at his funeral.
In the subsequent months another nine hunger strikers died at the hands of British imperialism which refused to concede their modest demands.
The Republican struggle reached its highest point for maybe ten years during the hunger strike drawing inspiration from the heroic Irish freedom nignier, bobby sands 'I WAS only a working class boy from a nationalist ghetto, but it is reoress on mar crestes me revolu tionary spirit of freedom. not settle until | achieve the liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign independent socialist republic. people, shall turn tragedv into triumph. We shall bear forth a nation.
SELF DETERMINATION FOR THE IRISH PEOPLE THE OTHER NIGHT shots reader, 'are military 30,000 similar to South Evidently Bobby in too late.
History weighs heavy.
million from the native country I shall tiful.
We, the risen and not the last.
invasion in … on the news, the screen was filled of the Falkland Islanders and life under the jackboot of the Argentinian invaders. 'Here,' said the news scenes of the North rifles.
the powers that be thought that this particular analogy might be a bit confusing for the listening public so the same fim in the next bulletin was purged of its subversive For 800 years the news has been doctored by the extent of the British oppression of the Irish and what lies behind their resistance. For 800 years the people of Ireland have suffered the fate of a people oppressed and exploited in the interests of the British ruling class. If the troops were removed tomorrow, it would be 800 years The crimes of the British ruling class are known by every Irish person.
It may have been the blight that killed the potato crop in 1848, but it was the British rul- Irish in ing class who starved one and a half million Irish and drove another 1½ The landlords harvested the wheat and arranged for its export and sale under armed guard. Food was plenBritish profits held up. It was the Irish workers and peasants who were burlea. It was not the first time.
There are three threads that run through Irish history, from the first 1169, through Oliver March St 8am Cromwell to Michael Foot Margaret Thatcher. The first is determination of the British rulers remain in Ireland, to exploit its : and people Second is the resistance of Irish people using the weapons hand, be they ballot box and politi movements, or bricks and arma The third is the combination cunning and brutality used by British trying to first divide and th resistance. These th threads will stretch the road of hist that leads to the final ousting British imperialism from Ireland.
James Connolly, the worker w rose lo become ine greatest revolutionary leader, stood on shoulders of Marx and Engels, wl fifty years before he took up ar against the British rulers, saw Irela as the key to the making of a revo tion that would shake Europe.
Not only did Connolly see th Ireland's interests could only be se ed when as a nation it had brok from British domination, he also s that only the working class fighti for a socialist republic could unite t their entirety all religious barriers, men and wom workers and tarmers The last time the British allow the Irish to vote, they voted by sev ty per cent for Sinn Fein and for break with Britain. The Tory pri minister, Bonar Law, replied: 'Th are some things that are stronger th parlamentary majorities. " Bv tha meant the strength of the capital class that was prepared to defy t vote and the army who would that class rather than assembles at 1p Speakers include Owen Cari MP and Ernie Roberts MP. 1 march sets off at 2pm to Cou Hall Westminster for a rally. the evening at 7pm in Brixt Town Hall, London SW2 th will be a social with Irish, Chile and Iranian music, and speec from Owen Carron, Daffyd E Thomas MP, and Brixt Detence Group.
Coaches for the mar leave from:
Swansea: Uplands 7.30am, Cen Library 8am.
Cardiff: Central Station 9am, stud union 9.15am Manchester: Polytechnic Cavend Bristol: Christadelphian steps, 9a Sheffield: Tickets from Independ Books, Glossop Rd.
Leeds: Trades and Labour Club 8 am, University 8.45am.
Birmingham: Hall of Memo Broad St, 9.30am.
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Camden councillors win victory
Footnote on
weeks Reagan backs Thatcher shock
and Bobby history of British domination of Ireland.
8 May Demonstration