Workers Daily Internet Edition Year 2002 No. 100

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Communiqué of 8th Plenum of Central Committee of RCPB(ML), May 26, 2002:
The Time Is Now to Seize the Initiative

London March for a United Ireland

Italy Intensifying Security Ahead of NATO-Russia Summit

Communiqué of 8th Plenum of Central Committee of RCPB(ML), May 26, 2002

The 8th Plenum concluded its proceedings recently, having been divided into two sessions over recent months. Its focus was the Party’s analysis: "The Time Is Now to Seize the Initiative!" Its context was that 2002 was characterised as the "Year of Implementation" in the line of march of the Party from its 3rd to 4th Congresses. This had followed on from 2001 as a key year in the carrying forwarded the work projected by the 3rd Congress, in which the full implications of the Congress were revealed.

The call that the time is now to seize the initiative has its basis in the pledge of the Party in the name of the workers of England, Scotland and Wales, and as a contingent of the communist and workers’ movement internationally, to intensify its work and prepare to organise the working class to turn things around. It is the affirmation that the Party will continue its work under all conditions and circumstances.

But the CC put forward that the call means being alive to who has the upper hand, which class in society has the initiative, and hence being in a position to set strategy and tactics as a participant in the objective national and international developments. The bourgeoisie has been pressing ahead with putting in place its arrangements in the context of its huge crisis nationally and internationally. It used the events of September 11, 2001, as an occasion to regain the upper hand in the face of the people’s forces building up their initiative. It declared that the world’s problems were not going to be solved, and the people were going to be blocked from solving them. The financial oligarchy should control every aspect to society, the bourgeoisie declared, stepping up the ideology of imperialist globalisation from "failed states" to "global community". The battle is being joined as to whether the bourgeoisie will put its neo-liberal arrangements in place nationally and internationally or whether the people under the leadership of the working class will declare that these arrangements will not go through and set their own agenda and plan of action.

The call to seize the initiative has this content, which smashes the justifications of the bourgeoisie that their arrangements of exploitation, subjugation and extreme parasitism are progressive, moral and based on high ideals. It is not a call for the labour aristocracy to throw its weight around and repair the credibility of social democracy, which is a call based on conciliation and impotency. It is a call for people to rely on their own forces, be their own models and sum up their experience. The Party is organising to stand at the head of this movement, and this is an integral part of its analysis that the time is now, placing itself within its tactical line of planting the alternative and building the workers’ opposition, utilising Marxism-Leninism – Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought – as a guide to action and not as a dogma. Seizing the initiative at this time means preparing to go on the offensive by working out what the programme of action of the working class means in terms not only of its general line of march and its vision for socialism, but also in terms of the demands that the class puts forward which serve to undermine the initiative of the bourgeoisie.

Specifically for the cadres militating in the ranks of RCPB(ML) at this time, the call that the time is now to seize the initiative implies bringing all the Party’s resources into play, and being effective with the forces and assets at its disposal in occupying the space which is opening up, while focusing on implementing the building of the Mass Party Press and participating in the political life of the country. In particular, in its preparation for the 4th Congress and appraising the space for the working class to put forward its solutions, the Party is emphasising the necessity for the working class to rally around its programme all the collectives of the people and the necessity to restore the unity of the communists on the basis of One Class, One Programme.

The 8th Plenum of the Central Committee also dealt in some detail with initiating the work leading up to the 4th Congress scheduled for March 2003. In this context, it endorsed the initiative to hold a National Consultative Conference and New Year’s Eve event on December 29, 2002, which will usher in the year of the 4th Congress of RCPB(ML).

The 8th Plenum did not underestimate the very serious situation facing the world’s people and the communist and workers’ movement at this juncture. But the overwhelming sentiment of the working class and people is to oppose the imposition of the "New World Order" and fight against the dominant trend of the deepest reaction all along the line and on all fronts. They are rejecting the use of force to settle conflicts, the flouting of the rule of law and the tearing up of international norms, the trampling on the sovereignty of nations and peoples being pushed under the guise of "universal values". The task of the Party is to soberly carry out its work in these circumstances, with full confidence in its forward march, and refusing to conciliate with the demand of the bourgeoisie that there is no alternative in the modern world but to fend for oneself and hand over the initiative to anyone and everyone but oneself.

The Time Is Now to Seize the Initiative!

All Power to the Cadres of RCPB(ML) to Implement its Work!

On Saturday, May 25, over 800 people marched from Seven Sisters in North London to a rally at the Haringey Irish Centre at White Hart Lane, calling for a United Ireland. The march and rally, organised by the Wolfe Tone Society, constituted the annual celebration dedicated to the memory of James Connolly, Bobby Sands and all those who have given their lives for Irish freedom. As the march proceeded through the streets of Tottenham, with Irish tricolour flags streaming in the breeze, and rebel songs and the chanting of slogans filling the air, many local people came out onto the street and expressed support. Prominent on the march were Irish resident in Britain, political groups, and other national minority communities, especially Turkish and Kurdish.

At the rally in the packed Irish Centre, as well as tributes to the Irish martyrs, the call of Sinn Fein to raise discussion of a United Ireland was taken up, as was solidarity with other peoples fighting for self-determination and against miscarriages of justice. This was reflected in the range of speakers.

The first speaker, Dercan, representing political prisoners in Turkey, expressed full solidarity with his Irish brothers and sisters. He linked the 1916 Rising, the H-blocks struggle and the struggle against Turkish fascism. He detailed the struggle against isolation cells in Turkish prisons and the death fast, which has claimed 91 lives in 18 months. He denounced the Turkish regime taking its orders from the Pentagon and the hypocrisy of the US and EU branding those Turks and Kurds fighting for democracy and independence as "terrorists". He recalled that the sacrifice of Bobby Sands had inspired those fighting for freedom in Turkey.

Lawyer Hugo Charlton of the Green Party, representing the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities, denounced the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2002. He said, to loud applause, that these were both attempts to silence dissent and had nothing to do with terrorism. Their aim was to widen control of dissident groups, including those against GM crops and globalisation, as well as a large number of ethnic groups. The main beneficiary of the tragic events of September 11, he said, was the cynical George W Bush agenda. Sadly the British government was going along the same lines, leading the EU in defining "terrorism". The subsequent proscribing of the PKK was ironic, given their cease-fire, and suppressed and prevented a political solution to a violent situation. In Britain too the "anti-terrorist" legislation was used for suppression. He said it was important to stand up and speak out against this legislation. The Colombia Three, he said, was a case of political manipulation, not terrorism.

Terry Stewart of CARF (Campaign Against Racism and Fascism) spoke about deaths in custody. He pointed out that seven of the last 10 inmates to die in Brixton Prison were Irish. He highlighted anti-Irish reaction in the prison service and the role played by Irish prisoners, now released under the Good Friday Agreement, thus leaving a gap, in the struggle for the rights of prisoners. He said the issue of prisoners’ rights for all nationalities must be addressed.

Neil Sammonds of Palestine Solidarity Campaign spoke of the struggles of the Palestinian people against Israeli state terrorism. He denounced the hypocrisy of the US and Britain in calling Sharon a "man of peace". He spoke of Israel’s violation of literally hundreds of UN Resolutions and of the Geneva Convention in the recent attacks. He drew parallels between Easter 1916 and recent events in Jenin.

Mahmut Sahin of the Intellectuals and Artists Association of Ankara spoke against the violation of human rights in Turkey. A human tragedy was being played out in Turkey, he said. We must all unite to oppose the Turkish government.

Pat Reynolds of the Christy McGrath Campaign gave details of the unjust incarceration of the young Irish worker on a charge of murder. He said there were serious questions to be raised about police practice.

Johnny Connolly, brother of Niall Connolly of the Colombia Three, spoke against the arrest and trial of his brother and his two comrades. He denounced the campaign of lies in the media and the mock trial that the US Congressional hearings had constituted. His brother had worked with displaced persons in Nicaragua and had lived in Cuba. The other two had been one a political prisoner in the north of Ireland and the other a victim of an RUC assassination attempt. There was therefore good reason why they were travelling with false passports, a relatively minor offence, given the nature of the Colombian regime, perpetrator of some 3-4,000 political assassinations. But they had been visiting a zone given over to discussions of the peace process (Mo Mowlam had also been there), not to weapons training. The forensic evidence supplied by the US Embassy had been discredited, he said, but this exposure had been declared inadmissible evidence. He said it was important to ensure a safe return of the accused to their families.

John McDonnell MP recalled that both James Connolly and Bobby Sands had been revolutionary socialists. They had also been internationalists. He paid tribute to the Irish republican movement which, he said, had often stood alone in solidarity with movements abroad. A priority was to re-establish campaigning pressure. By September George W Bush had wanted to be in Iraq, only the Palestinians had held him up. He said the republican socialist movement must head the peace campaign in solidarity with Iraq, and in solidarity with persecuted asylum seekers, who were now often the victims of a knock in the night reminiscent of Nazi Germany. He said the election of five Sinn Fein TDs in Ireland was to be celebrated and was in the tradition of James Connolly and Bobby Sands. A republican socialist party had been elected which could represent the Irish Diaspora and understood the Irish identity. He declared solidarity with Sinn Fein.

The main speaker, former political prisoner Pat McNamee, Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, congratulated the participants of the march and rally. He expressed solidarity with the visitors representing Palestinians, Turks and Kurds, as well as with the oppressed people in Britain. James Connolly, he said, had been a man of vision, a major force in the labour movement who had seen a United Ireland not as a mere geographical entity, but cherishing all the children of the nation, a democratic socialist republic providing equality and justice for all its people. These are still, he said, the republican objectives. Sometimes this had necessitated military resistance against British oppression. The hunger strikes of 1981 had been the culmination of years of protracted struggle. Nobody had wanted the hunger strikes, but the attempts to criminalise the political prisoners and the Irish republican struggle had had to be resisted. It had begun with Roy Mason’s withdrawal of political prisoner status in 1977. Prisoners refused to wear criminal uniforms and do prison work. The blanket and then "dirty" protests had then been necessitated by beatings and physical abuse over sanitary arrangements. Pat McNamee then movingly recalled his own days as a political prisoner at that time. Those had been dark days, he said, some of the worst days of life, of despair and sadness. He and his comrades could thus well appreciate the suffering of the Turkish, Kurdish and Palestinian prisoners and their families. What did the hunger strikes achieve, he asked? They legitimised the political struggle against British rule, he said. Thatcher failed to criminalise the struggle. They internationalised the struggle, mobilising nationalists and republicans in Ireland, Britain and across the world. The question was put: do we stand up or do we accept British misrule? The answer was given in the election of Bobby Sands as MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone. Since then there have been significant developments. Sinn Fein has become a growing political force. In the recent period they had seen their political representation increase to four MPs at Westminster, 18 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, and now five TDs in the Dail in Dublin. The nature, the form, of the struggle was different, but the objectives were the same. The struggle was still for an independent, socialist, democratic Ireland. The representatives were the same. I am a former prisoner, Pat McNamee said. Martin Ferris topped the poll as the people’s choice in North Kerry, a man arrested importing arms to Ireland. Arthur Morgan, elected in Paddy Agnew’s former seat in Louth, is a former political prisoner. Sean Crowe, elected in Dublin South West (Tallagh), Caoimghin O Caolain, elected in Cavan/Monaghan, Angeus O Snodaigh, elected in Dublin South Central, have all represented Sinn Fein for 25 years. Dessie Ellis, Joe Reilly and Nicky Kehoe, who all just missed election, were all in Portlaoise. The nature of the struggle has changed but we are the same representatives progressing it, he said. He was sure too that the Turkish, Kurdish and Palestinian prisoners would be the representatives of the future. He warned that although people might be more relaxed, the oppression and repression in the Six Counties not being so intense, yet there was much still to do. Many of the aspects of the Good Friday Agreement had still to be brought to fruition. A Bill of Rights, a human rights culture, policing, North-South aspects, were still not fully implemented. There remains an enormous amount of work, Pat McNamee said. In the Northern Ireland Assembly, Sinn Fein will most likely soon be the largest nationalist party. Sinn Fein would thus provide the Deputy First Minister. Some might doubt the process, but a picture was forming. It accorded with the vision of James Connolly in 1916. It accorded with the vision of Bobby Sands. The vision of a United Ireland!

Pat McNamee’s speech was greeted with loud and sustained acclaim, with the audience rising to its feet as one. The speeches throughout had been punctuated with cheers and applause. This festive spirit continued with a convivial social featuring Irish music.

Italy is planning exceptional security measures for the NATO-Russia summit scheduled for May 28 just outside Rome. A security force of more than 15,000 strong will patrol the area around the air base hosting the summit. Twenty heads of state and government are to take part in the one-day meeting on Tuesday, including US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

NATO and Russia will sign a co-operation agreement at the summit, the signing ceremony being held at an airforce base at Pratica di Mare, about 15 kilometres south of the Italian capital. The accord will incorporate Russia in the NATO decision and planning council.

Major precautions are being taken to ensure security, including a naval exclusion zone around the base for the day of the summit. NATO's AWACS surveillance planes and Italian coastguard vessels will be on patrol. An anti-missile system will also be deployed. Security will be extremely tight at Rome's main passenger airport, Leonardo da Vinci. Italian officials said air marshals would be aboard civilian planes flying in and out of the airport on Tuesday. In addition, a decision is pending on whether to completely close the airport to all traffic during the summit. Rome's second airport, Ciampino, will be closed to commercial flights and its use reserved exclusively for VIPs.

On Monday, a NATO military mission opens officially in Moscow, to be headed by British General Peter Williams and four deputies. The opening has been timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Russia-NATO founding act on co-operation signed in Paris on May 27, 1997.