BASQUES AGAINST NATO AND EU – Interview with Herri Ekimena organisation.

On September 5, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Anti-War, Basque Country, Current Affairs Comment, Euskal Herria, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, Spanish State, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Oscar DíazTranslation from Castilian Spanish by D.Breatnach
(Reading time main piece: 10 mins.)

1. What is Herri Ekimena?

Herri Ekimena is an initiative that emerged in March 2022. A series of organizations began to get together due to concern about the offensive of Atlanticist imperialism in Ukraine, in addition to the blatant manipulation of the media to get us to support their war strategy.

We also observed that, in a context of capitalist crisis and with the excuse of the war against Russia, economic measures were being imposed that resulted in greater impoverishment of the working class.

That is why we took to the streets at that time with the slogan “NATO and the EU condemn us to war and misery”, to turn the official discourse around a little and point to these two organizations as the main ones responsible for the increase in international tensions, as well as for the oppression of the working classes of the imperialist bloc itself.

Also in the month of June of that 2022 we called a demonstration in Bilbo, “against the imperialism of NATO and the EU” and calling for the end of the Russophobia that is still being promoted.

In parallel to the NATO summit that was held in Madrid, we also carried out a 48-hour poster campaign in Gernika, a city with great anti-fascist symbolism that the Ukrainian Nazis tried to appropriate, citing it in a speech before the Spanish Parliament by Zelensky himself.

After a short break, we resumed the fight in the streets at the end of the year, with the “Free Euskal Herria out of NATO and the EU” campaign. In March we held a massive demonstration in Bilbo, together with Askapena¹ and the Bardenas Ya² collective.

*View of demonstration against NATO and war in Bilbao, June 2022.* (Photo source: *Bultza Herri Ekimena*)

This demonstration was exciting to us as we saw that the work that had been done was already bearing fruit and that the anti-imperialist spirit that has historically characterized Euskal Herria was projected in the streets.

We are currently in a restructuring process in order to be more effective, and give new impetus to the anti-imperialist struggle in the streets, which is where this game is truly played.

2. Why combine anti-fascist and anti-imperialist slogans?

The imperialist offensive, which has to do with the systemic crisis of capitalism and the rise of new economic powers, is being accompanied by a general reduction of rights and freedoms.

Those in power fear popular revolts, like those that have been taking place in the French State in recent months.

In Euskal Herria we know well what emergency laws or illegal practices are employed to put an end to dissent, but these types of measures are spreading and becoming normalized throughout Europe. Concentration camps for migrants, deportations without any type of legal guarantee, electronic anklet tags are also normalized…

And also in the case of the countries bordering Russia, imperialism is responsible for waving old supremacist and anti-Slavic flags, such as is happening in Ukraine or Poland.

We see therefore that capitalism, in its most decadent phase, has little scruple when it comes to reactivating liberticidal policies or inciting openly Nazi military and paramilitary shock forces.

So in effect, we believe that the anti-imperialist struggle and the anti-fascist struggle are inseparable parts of the same struggle for our rights and freedoms.

3. A few years ago one could see Donbass flags in the stands of Atlethic³. Why mix football and politics?

Through various institutions, including football clubs, they want to force down our throats the supposed “depoliticization of public spaces.” It is false, because they are the first to try to control absolutely all areas of our lives that we may become submissive and uncritical people.

The media bombardment is constant, generating false debates among humble people about insecurity, occupying empty properties… They thus try to legitimize, by action or omission, measures of social control and police repression that are very, very worrying.

So when someone puts a poster on the street to denounce any injustice, or puts up a banner, or paints graffiti… They are calling into question that false normality that they want to impose on us.

Banner displayed by Athletic Bilbao FC fans during a match. The text is difficult to see in its entirety but in general it is clearly in solidarity with the Donbas region against attack from the Kiev administration.

It is sad — but this situation also reflects the weakness of the system in terms of political legitimacy. Who explicitly supports them? Who is not fed up with everything that is happening? So they are afraid of the flame that starts a prairie fire.

Sports venues do not escape this logic of imposing false normality, even if the laws have to be twisted or passed directly through the triumphal arch.

A Donetsk flag, for example, ruins their photo and calls into question the story that people agree with what they do. So they impose fines of €3,000 just for displaying the flag of a People’s Republic.

Let’s hope that in not many years we will be able to analyze all this as the blows of a dying regime, but for now it is up to us to organize the response and popular solidarity. Repression should not be normalized, nor should people who step forward feel alone.

4. Is EH Bildu⁴ being favorable to NATO?

We do not believe that the social base of EH Bildu is in favor of NATO. That is, if we asked EH Bildu voters if they were in favor of NATO, surely 99% would say no. The problem is that, for its leaders, opposing Atlanticist imperialism is not currently on the list of priorities.

Regarding the issue of the war in Ukraine, Arnaldo Otegi⁵ has openly positioned himself in favor of Ukrainian “sovereignty” and against the Russian “occupation.” Is Ukraine now a sovereign state? Or is it rather a puppet of NATO in its offensive against Russia?

Doesn’t Russia have the right to defend itself from NATO attacks? What about the thousands of people killed in Donbass since 2014? Should Russia have been obliged to watch this genocide impassively?

Have the self-determination processes in Donetsk, in Lugansk, in Crimea … not been practical exercises of sovereignty? In this context, we can say that the speech of some EH Bildu leaders has favored and continues to favor the interests of NATO.

Their support for the State Budget deserves special mention, which includes a 25% increase in military spending. A measure imposed precisely by NATO to approach 2% of GDP in 2029, which is truly outrageous.

So… perhaps it is harsh to say that EH Bildu is in favor of NATO so let us put it another way: What is EH Bildu doing to make Euskal Herria break with NATO? What teaching are they carrying out among their social base and at a public level to create a truly anti-imperialist consciousness?

Very little or nothing, we believe, that is the reality.

5. Will it be possible to continue to see reliable information about Ukraine in the Basque Country and the Spanish state now that military juntas have been formed in African countries that have expelled French embassies? They are very different countries and thousands of kilometers away…

The events that are taking place in the SAHEL area are complex processes, and surely have many sides that make it difficult for us to equate them with the decolonization processes that we have known historically.

But we would be committing a mistake if, due to these supposed “imperfections” with respect to the theoretical manual, we stopped supporting countries that are fighting for nothing less than to expel their occupiers (since those are true occupiers who try to impose themselves by force of weapons thousands of kilometers from their borders) and also to gain control of their enormous natural resources.

How can it be that in extraordinarily rich countries, like Niger or Gabon, the majority of the population survives in absolute poverty? We will have to carefully observe all these processes, but in anti-imperialist Euskal Herria we can only rejoice and tell them that they are not alone.

In this land that, to a degree, also knows what it is to fight against armed occupiers and various collaborators, we know very well that solidarity is the love between people.

Regarding the quality of the information that we are able to receive in Euskal Herria or in the Spanish state, we believe that right now it is below minimum.

It is pathetic to see how, every time an event occurs that could undermine the hegemony of Atlantic imperialism, the mainstream media wait to receive instructions before even reporting the event.

The control of capital over the big media is a reality, so we must promote and support alternative means of information and communication. And also to fight openly in the streets, so that they have no choice but to report our demands.

6. Couldn’t the creation of a multipolar world be dangerous on a war level?

Yes, in fact it already is. We had been talking for years about the end of Yankee hegemony and the economic rise of countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the so-called BRICS.

Perhaps we thought that this change of orientation of world hegemony was going to be a calm process, without any surprises…

But nothing could be further from the truth. While it is true that Yankee imperialism is mortally injured (which we believe it is), the truth is that it seems willing to kill as it dies.

Currently it has restructured NATO in a few months, has de facto absorbed the European Union and is reconfiguring its alliance policy on a global scale. It is increasingly easier to identify “which side” the different states are on, which can be the prelude to a conflict on a planetary scale.

We have been able to verify this recently with Morocco. NATO and the EU buy Morocco and abandon the Sahara to its fate.⁶ What should the Sahrawis do if Algeria, Russia or China offer them help to win their rights and survive as a people?

Of course there may be geopolitical interests in this aid from emerging powers, but it is necessary to analyze whether the agreements, commercial exchanges, donations and aid are produced with mutual respect for sovereignty and benefit the currently oppressed nations.

Of course, from a revolutionary point of view we have to be exacting, and not give a blank cheque to these emerging powers.

In this entire process of multipolarity, whether we like it or not, which is already making its mark upon world geopolitics, there is a class struggle that we must not ignore.

But this critical stance cannot lead us to fall into ninism and evade our own historical responsibility: to combat Atlanticist imperialism from the very heart of the beast.

7. You say “Euskal Herria free from NATO.” And what about the rest of the Spanish state?

We say Euskal Herria should be free outside NATO, but also outside the EU. We believe that this contribution is important, since for many years consideration of leaving the EU has been a kind of taboo, also in Euskal Herria.

Some thought that the EU might even support a possible independence process in Euskal Herria, just as was thought in Catalonia.

*“A Free Basque Country out of NATO and the EU”.*

But the EU has definitively been revealed as a capitalist lobby, as an instrument at the service of elites with a more than dubious past, even with regard to their support for Nazism.

Úrsula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell… are faithful representatives of the EU of Capital, authoritarian and totally committed to the interests of the US. That is why we say that neither the nation nor as a class have a future within the EU.

We make this statement from Euskal Herria, which is our area of struggle. But of course it extends to the entire Spanish State, as well as to the French State and all the peoples of Europe.

A future in freedom is not possible belonging to these criminal organizations, neither in Euskal Herria nor anywhere else.

8. What do you think of the military administration by Margarita Robles of the PSOE/UP government?⁷

Margarita Robles is a pit bull of Spanish politics, a woman who knows perfectly the ins and outs of the State from the offices to the sewers. Not for nothing has she been in positions of power for more than 30 years, originally in the shadow of Belloch, later of Rubalcaba…

At first it may have been surprising to see her at the head of a Ministry like the Defense Ministry, she who comes from the judiciary and who, even in relation to the conflict between Euskal Herria and the Spanish State, had adopted a dialogue profile at certain times.

We are missing a lot of information (I wish that we in Herri Ekimena knew what was going on in the Ministry of Defense, haha), but Margarita Robles is probably dedicating herself to doing in the Spanish military what she also did in her day in the Ministry of Justice and Interior.

That was to send the most archaic elements to the refrigerator in a non-traumatic way to perfectly adapt to the current standards and guidelines of NATO and the EU. Change a minimum so that everything remains absolutely the same.

Can anyone imagine Spanish generals standing up for Spanish national sovereignty in the face of Atlanticist imposition? This could happen in the French State, in fact it would not be unreasonable for something like this to happen.

In the Spanish State it is much more unlikely, but it is the responsibility of politicians like Mrs. Robles that nothing should deviate from the script written by Washington and Brussels.

In this regard, it is worth highlighting the role of the PSOE in what has been the process of integration of the Spanish State into imperialist structures. In addition to Felipe González, we could mention Javier Solana (who became Secretary General of NATO), Josep Borrell⁸…

Whether it is a matter of affinity, or a matter of pragmatism, the truth is that it appears that the PSOE generates a lot more trust among the imperialist powers than any other political party at the level of the State.

9. There were elections this past July 23, 2023. Did any of the political forces propose the departure of NATO from the Spanish state?

We are not aware that this was the case. As we have said before, this government is responsible for the largest increase in military spending in history, and faithfully complies with NATO and EU mandates.

Vice President Yolanda Díaz has publicly supported sending weapons to Ukraine and, as far as we know, no party that supports the government has opposed these shipments as a matter of principle.

We remember that these are weapons that are being used by Nazi soldiers to bomb and murder, not alone Russian soldiers but also the civilian population of Donbass. So we have to organize and fight in the streets, because if we don’t, things will remain exactly the same or worse.

This is the reason for existence of Herri Ekimena, to activate the popular struggle against the imperialism of NATO and the EU. We are working at it and, if all goes well, there will be good news in this regard in the coming weeks.

SOURCE

http://oscar-elbloquedeleste.blogspot.com/

FOOTNOTES

1Askapena was the internationalist solidarity arm of the broad Basque national liberation organisation but split from it many years ago in concern at the deviation from the path of resistance by the leadership under Arnaldo Otegi.

2Bardenas Ya is an organisation campaiging against the military installation in Bardenas, Nafarroa (Navarre).

3Athletic Bilbao FC, whose fans and many of its players have a strong anti-fascist and pro-Basque independence tradition.

4EH Bildu is the political party of the current compliant ‘official’ leadership of the Basque national movement, replacing the Herri Batasuna of the past.

5Leader of EH Bildu who has led the party into what many consider its collaborationist current stance.

6Western Sahara was a Spanish colonial possession and it abandoned it without decolonisation, which allowed Morocco and Mauritania to invade and occupy it against the wishes of the Saharawi people. As a result of the national liberation struggle of the Polisario Front, Mauritania withdrew but Morocco remained in occupation and carrying out repression against the resistance. Shortly before Trump’s departure from the USA’s presidency, he agreed to endorse Moroccan defiance of the UN-recognised Sahawarwi resistance to occupation in exchange for Morocco reversing its long anti-Zionist policy and formally recognising the Zionist occupation of Palestine, which the Moroccan Kingdom has done.

7The recent coalition Government of the Spanish State, the social-democratic PSOE with the Left-social democratic alliance of Unidas Podemos. Currently, the PSOE is endeavouring to form a government in coalition with a somewhat reconfigured Left-social democratic coalition called Sumar.

8All three have been PSOE politicians, Felipe González a prime minister and widely believed head of the GAL anti-Basque terrorist gang. Borrell was President of the European Parliament (2004-2007) and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Spanish Government from 2018 to 2019. He attacked Catalan self-determination which he characterised as part of a disease, despite his own Catalan origin and he is now the Foreign Minister of the European Union.

ANOTHER AFRICAN FRENCH COLONY REBELS

On August 30, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Africa, Current Affairs Comment, French Colonialism & Neo-Colonialism, History, Imperialism, National Liberation, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 4 mins.)

News reaches us that military forces in Gabon, yet another colony (say neo-colony) of French imperialism in West Africa, have carried out a coup, deposed the titular President and put him under house arrest.

Actually, some of the reporting called it “an attempted coup” which seems strange: the military in control of its own bases, national broadcastings stations and with the former leadership under arrest seems a lot more than an “attempt”.

*Map of African states and cities* (By: GISGeography Last Updated: August 9, 2023). *Gabon is located on the west coast (down from Cameroun and up from Angola)*.

Given recent nationalist military coups in a number of former French colonies, a lot of speculation is taking place as to whether this case is a harbinger of future uprisings against French imperialism and also as to whether the new apparently nationalist administration of Gabon has a future.

CENTURIES OF SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICAN RESOURCES

Throughout the 17^th, 18^th19^th centuries, European colonial powers scrambled for control of African natural resources, including slaves (and slave-like labour after the abolition of slavery). Vast resources of oil, valuable metals, minerals and gem stones are still being extracted from Africa.

Much of Africa was conquered and occupied by French colonialism¹ and in most of those countries French is a ‘national’ language of the state and sometimes the only one so recognised. After “independence” France continued to extract natural resources and labour power from the regions.

Recently² the military of some of those neo-colonies carried out coups and overthrew their France-aligned rulers, accusing them of being effectively administrators of French neo-colonialism. Niger was the most recent in July 2003, Burkina Faso in January 2022 Mali in August 2020.

There have been others too but those three countries border one another and have also declared an alliance against any invasion, such as that threatened by the pro-imperialist alliance of ECOWAS³ of which the dominant member is Nigeria.

NEO-COLONIALISM

There have been historically more than one method of effectively colonising a country. It may be invaded and resistance crushed, the administration (taxation etc) henceforth being managed directly from the invading country or from a government dependent on the invader.

The system may include large-scale settlement of land (as in Ireland and Algeria) but in any case the cities will include enclaves of invader settlers and administrators, charitable, religious and educational institutions, nearly always teaching a curriculum based on the occupiers’ culture.

*Deposed President Ali Bongo Ondima in Residence Libreville 30 September 2023* (Photo cred: *BTP Advisors to the President via AP*)

There were also ‘protectorates’, such as Palestine for example, under British control and accepted so by other powers, without a direct system of colonial occupation or administration.

Ireland had the colonial-settler-parliament system under the British occupation until 1800 when by bribery and self-interest, the Irish Parliament⁴ dissolved itself and almost immediately joined the United Kingdom, Irish elected MPs then having to attend parliament in Westminster.

In 1921, that system continued for the British colony of the Six Counties but control of the rest of Ireland was exercised a distance through the governments and State departments of the majority section of the Irish national capitalist class, the Gombeens.⁵

That system was developed by British imperialism throughout its Empire, piece by piece. The French followed but the ruling classes of Belgium, Holland and Portugal were slower to adapt. After WWII, the USA used the system increasingly in Latin America⁶, Africa and Asia.

GABON HISTORY

Gabon of course has a long history before Africa was ever occupied and settled by European powers. Africa after all is the cradle of humanity.

Bantu migrants settled the area in the early 14th century. In the late 15^th century Portuguese explorers and traders arrived in the area and in the 16th century the coast became a centre of the transatlantic slave trade with European slave traders arriving to the region.

France occupied Gabon in 1885, but did not administer it until 1903. In 1910 Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa. On 15 July 1960 France agreed to Gabon becoming an independent state but the reality was that it became one of France’s neo-colonies.

Unexpectedly perhaps, there was a WWII battle there: in November 1940 Free French forces were sent by De Gaul to take the area from the Vichy-loyal administration there. The Battle of Gabon lasted four days and ended in victory for De Gaulle’s forces.

WHERE TO NOW?

Whether Gabon’s neighbours would invade remains to be seen and the country is separated by over 2,000 km distance from Niger, the nearest one of the three Sahel French colonies in rebellion, a shortest distance that traverses the currently hostile major state of ECOWAS, Nigeria.

*Crowds celebrating the army coup in Libreville, capital of Gabon, 30 August 2023* (Photo cred: *Al Jazeera*)

The three Sahel colonies themselves seem somewhat more secure in so far as they can support one another⁷ and also in so far as the clients of the Western powers are reluctant to take military action against them, a reluctance already demonstrated by the failure of ECOWAS to invade to date.⁸

Overall, these developments cannot but have given heart to national liberation forces, including revolutionary ones, across Africa and even beyond. French client regimes will be looking over their shoulder but so too will the client regimes of the British and the USA.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1For an indication of how Africa was carved up for exploitation by European powers even in the 1940s, see the map https://omniatlas.com/maps/sub-saharan-africa/19401108/

2Not so recent was Algiers, where the people fought a hard and bitter struggle against the colonists and France and declared independence in 1954. Some other countries also declared independence but were subverted or imperial client regimes came to power in them, often also by coup.

3Economic Community of West African States.

4For most of its history since the Reformation, only Anglican MPs had been admitted to this Parliament and for much of that time too, only Anglicans could vote. Progressive national bourgeoisie such as Grattan and Tone had failed to overturn this exclusiveness and it was that which convinced Wolfe Tone and other United Irishmen that a revolution was necessary. They rose unsuccessfully in 1798 and again in 1803.

5Na Gaimbíní, the Irish capitalist class that arose under British occupation to which it was subservient. Some at least of the wealth accumulated by this class was through gaining control of lands abandoned or having to be sold at a loss by their occupants during the Great Hunger of 1845-1849. The name has now passed on to describe the foreign-dependent client capitalist class of the Irish state, first subservient to British colonialism, then to US imperialism and finally to EU imperialism.

6As we recognise USA dominance of Latin America today through invasions, sponsored coups and financial controls, we are likely to be surprised to find that Latin America was largely a British imperialist preserve through much of the 19^th Century and up until WWII, when it had to cede much of it to the USA in exchange for war material support.

7And perhaps be supported by nearby Algeria.

8Despite the deadline the organisation issued for reinstating Niger’s deposed President having long passed.

SOURCES AND USEFUL LINKS

https://www.breakingnews.ie/explained/the-wealthy-dynastic-leader-of-gabon-who-believed-he-could-resist-a-coup-1521039.html

https://omniatlas.com/maps/sub-saharan-africa/19401108/

Gabon history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gabon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gabon

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE PRISONER – DUBLIN

On August 12, 2023August 12, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Basque Country, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Palestine, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: mins.)

Socialist republicans and communists gathered on a traffic island in Dublin’s city centre to mark the International Day of the Prisoner. They flew flags to represent prisoners in Ireland (‘Starry Plough’), the Basque Country and Palestine.

They also displayed a number of placards.

The choice of location, apart from being passed by road traffic in three directions, was because of the presence there of the Universal Links on Human Rights memorial sculpture with an eternal flame, commissioned by the Amnesty International organisation.

A plaque near the sculpture bears the following words: “The candle burns not for us but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison. Who were tortured. Who were kidnapped. Who disappeared. That is what the candle is for.”

Plaque in the ground on the approach to the sculpture. (Photo: *IAIC*).

Somewhat ironically, one of the placards carried the words: “Amnesty International, do Irish Republican prisoners not have human rights too?” Irish Republicans have long complained that the organisation in question does not raise any issues with regard to Irish political prisoners.

Some have indicated as a possible reason or part-reason the location of the head office of Amnesty International being based in London, capital city of the occupying power. Its interventions on Ireland even during three decades of war in the colony have been very few indeed.

Other placards displayed referred to political prisoners from the liberation wars in India and in the Philippines, the innocent Craigavon Two still in jail and ongoing internment through refusal of bail to Republicansappearing before the no-jury special courts in both administrations.

Some leaflets were distributed about ongoing internment in Ireland through long remands in custody of Republican activists. Between convicted and awaiting trial there are close to 50 political prisoners in jails in Ireland between both administrations.

The Universal Links sculpture by Tony O’Malley (welding by Jim O’Connor) commissioned by Amnesty International. (Photo: *IAIC*)

The Zionist Israeli state holds 5,000 political prisoners (almost all Palestinian), of which over 1,132 are not even charged (‘administrative detention’). There are 33 female Palestinian political prisoners and 160 child prisoners. Philippines has 803 political prisoners.

The Spanish and French states hold between them around 170 Basque political prisoners.

The event to mark International Day of the Prisoner was organised by the Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign and a spokesperson gave a short explanation on video of the reason for the event with the human rights sculpture in the background.

End.

Some of the flags displayed (Photo: *IAIC*).

Passer-by in conversation with a leafleter. (Photo: *IAIC*).

AFRICA – MILITARY COUPS & DEMOCRACY

On August 9, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Africa, Current Affairs Comment, France, French Colonialism & Neo-Colonialism, Imperialism, National Liberation, Official Corruption, Political Analysis3 Comments

News & Views No.6 Diarmuid Breatnach (Reading time: 4 mins.)

The media has alerted us to a military coup taking place in an African country most of us won’t even have heard of: Niger.

Apparently Niger had a democratically-elected leader overthrown by the coup and many states, including France and the US, are very concerned about this. Naturally so. Military juntas are surely no fit replacement for democracy.

*Map of much of Africa showing Niger in green and surrounding states* (Source: *Wikipedia*)

But it turns out that the USA and France have other reasons to be concerned apart from questions of democracy: both states have military stationed there, the USA including in fact a major military installation producing and operating drones, some of which are armed.

But why are they there? Well, to defend Niger against fundamentalist Muslim jihadists. That’s good, right? Helping the Nigerien people. It’s true that some unkind (and possibly ungrateful) people accuse the US of having given birth to the islamist fundamentalists originally, but, well …

We learned just recently two very strange facts, side by side: 1) Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world and 2) it is the seventh-largest exporter of a highly-valuable material: uranium.

Niger also has gold mines (two years ago 18 people were killed in a mine collapse) but curiously, Niger has no gold reserves at all. France, on the other hand, which has no gold mines whatsoever had 2,437 tonnes of the metal in their reserves at the end of the second quarter of this year.

Uranium is valuable because it is used in the production of nuclear power which, in turn, in many parts of the world, is used to generate electricity. France being one of those countries, where 80% of its uranium comes from … Niger. And 20% of the EU’s electricity likewise.

Hmm. So there might be reasons apart from restoring democracy for France being so upset at the coup, especially when the coup leaders say they want to break with France.

*Urban scene in Niger, exact location and date unknown* (Source: *Internet*)

But going back to this country being one of the poorest in the world, at least they must have plenty of generated power, right? Well, no. It turns out that 80% of the people have no electricity supply whatsoever. Democratic government or not, that can’t be right, can it?

Anyway, France has ordered the coup leaders to reinstate the deposed president with a deadline of last Sunday or it would take stern action. The deadline has passed quietly without an invasion or other attack.

Niger was a colony of France and became independent in 1960 so it’s kind of strange that France has such a grip on the country still.

Another five states border Niger including Mali and Burkina Faso, also ex-French colonies, also under recent military coup juntas. Their leaders have said any attack on Niger would be considered an attack on them.

Algeria was also a French colony and fought a very hard liberation struggle for independence, since when it has friendly relations with Russia. Algerian armoured vehicles have moved to the border with Niger, in what will be understood as a warning to other states not to invade.

Chad is another ex-French colony in the region but it made some threatening noises against the military coup leaders in Niger; Senegal too is an ex-French colony loyal to France.

Senegal’s political opposition leader Ousmane Sonko is on hunger strike in jail and his lawyer Juan Branco, extradited from Mauritania is in jail too for defending Sonko but nobody seems to be shouting about Senegal’s lack of democracy – not that we can hear, at least.

The west-friendly (some say neo-colonial) state of Nigeria, the leading state in the pro-western African alliance COWAS has imposed sanctions and threatened to invade Niger if the previous regime is not reinstated. Nigeria is huge and with extremely valuable resources, including oil.

In 1995, in defence of British Petroleum’s operations, Nigeria hanged peaceful environmental activists in the Delta region, the Ogoni Nine. As many as 4 in 10 Nigerians live below the national poverty line with 133 million living in poverty, according to its own national statistics.

Regarding Africa and coups, we Irish have cause to remember the Congo where Irish UN peacekeeping soldiers were killed, after a military uprising in a province against the elected patriot Patrice Lumumba was carried out in support of Belgian mining interests, supported by the USA.

And Uganda’s military rule under Idi Amin was generally OK with the western powers until he began to throw his weight around against the British, who had trained and supported him, so they had to bring him down.

*Supporters in Niger of the military coup there demonstrating.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Elsewhere, for example in Latin America, military coups in many countries including Brazil, Chile and Argentina have been supported by the western powers or indeed instigated by them. As in what is now Iran, when the British overthrew the Shah in 1941 to replace him with his son.

Dictatorship from 1965 in Indonesia was widely seen by the western powers as necessary to stop the spread of socialist and national liberation ideas and, as in most such coups, the toll in massacres and torture by the new regime was huge. None such in Niger though, at least so far.

If we were citizens of Niger would we think ourselves better off under a military junta rather than a democratically-elected President? We might initially be more concerned as to whether the riches of our country were to be used to lift us from such poverty.

To give us education, hospitals, medicines, food, work, clean water, refuge from heat, power … or instead extracted and shipped out to some other country.

And what would we think of France, possibly backed by other NATO countries and their client states, coming to invade our land and bring back the old state of affairs?

End.

Niger’s National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane, center, is greeted by supporters as he arrives for rally at the Stade General Seyni Kountche in Niger’s capital city Niamey, on August 6, 2023.(Photo cred.: *Rebecca Blackwell, AP*)

Cluster Bombs for Ukraine

On July 13, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Imperialism, US ImperialismLeave a comment

(This article is reprinted from Socialist Democracy by kind permission of the author Gearóid Ó Loingsigh)

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The USA has announced that it will supply cluster bombs to Ukraine as part of its support for the war against Russia.

On one level the move is not surprising, on another it reveals some fundamental truths about the course of the war and US intentions.

They are banned by international treaty, one which has not been signed by Russia or Ukraine, and of course, neither has it been signed by the US. The US has always dragged its feet on the question of the banning of certain types of weapons.

Cluster bombs, are simply put bombs that break up into smaller components leaving small explosive devices scattered over a large area of land. They are a

…conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions…

These weapons are designed for use against massed formations of troops and armour or broad targets, such as airfields. Cluster submunitions, however, sometimes fail to explode on impact and can kill or maim civilians who later come into contact with them. These unexploded submunitions may remain dangerous for decades.(1)

They have all the potential to leave Ukraine like the US left Cambodia and Laos in the 1970s.

According to Cluster Munition Monitor 23,082 casualties were confirmed by the year 2021, with around 18,426 resulting from unexploded munitions.

Biden has a long and chequered history on the use of the weapons.

His ambassador to the UN had condemned their use by Russia, stating they had no legitimate place on the battlefield, though two days later the State Department censored the official transcript of her intervention to remove the phrase.

Biden had criticised the use of and access to such weapons in the past. (2)

Whilst it is all very interesting and even of humanitarian concern that the US would wish to turn Ukraine in another Laos and Cambodia, though unlike Kissinger they will be telling no lies about their bombs, it is of greater interest what it says about the war.

Biden’s official reason is that Ukraine is running out of munitions and they need the cluster bombs. We have been told from the word go that this war is winnable, i.e. that Ukraine can win it.

This of course ignores that Ukraine is not the only warring party fighting Russia; NATO is part of the war, although it is not putting many boots on the ground, though it clearly has had a hand in some operations.

Every week we hear announcements that the counter offensive will smash Russia, almost there, one more push, the Russians have run out of weapons, their army is demoralised and deserting etc. Now it turns out that Ukraine needs these weapons or else.

These weapons are very useful in halting advances by your enemy, they are not as necessary in situations where your enemy is routed, unless you think it may regroup and retake the initiative.

Ireland has wholeheartedly supported the war in Ukraine, confirming to those who wish to see that it is not a neutral country. It has had little to say on the issue of these banned weapons.

They will make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable and make agriculture a dangerous profession as sowing and reaping become potentially life-threatening activities. If Biden will go to these lengths, what else will he do?

*Children view unexploded cluster bomb sub-munition near their village, Laos, 2019* (Photo cred: *Sarah Bronstein*)

Despite the media talking about Putin’s willingness to use nuclear weapons, it really has to be asked whether the US is willing to go that far as well.

What then of the former leftists running round chanting victory for NATO, or as they would put it for Ukraine? None of them have said much either on Biden’s choice of weaponry. Is there no length to which the US will go that marks a turning point for them? The answer is no.

Should Biden propose facilitating large scale rocket attacks on Moscow they are as likely to cheer them on as to remain silent. What they will not do, ever, is oppose the escalation of the war. Modern day Kautskys.

Notes

(1) See https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/clusterataglance

(2) See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/07/bidens-complicated-history-cluster-munitions/

SOCIALIST REPUBLICANS HONOUR “THE FATHER OF IRISH REPUBLICANISM”

On July 11, 2023July 11, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Folk Custom, History commemoration, Imperialism, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins)

A broad group of socialist Republicans gathered at the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone on Sunday 2^nd July to honour his memory and to reiterate their commitment to an independent and socialist Ireland outside of imperialist military alliances.

Wolfe Tone’s grave in the Bodenstown Church graveyard has been a place of pilgrimage for Irish Republicans at least since the days of Thomas Davis¹ of the Young Irelanders of the 1840s, who wrote of his own visit to the grave and composed the song “In Bodenstown’s Churchyard”.

The late 1960s saw huge numbers of people in attendance at annual commemorations there near the village of Sallins, Co. Kildare, including not only Sinn Féin², who led them, but many political and social organisations, GAA clubs, along with many non-aligned people.

Over the years, the voluntary and unfunded National Graves Association has improved the site comprehensively and sensitively, leaving the ruins of the Protestant church as they are but building a stage attached to one side, fronted with plaques and commemorative flag stones.

Commemorations currently are usually organised around a Sunday near the date of the patriot leader’s birthday on 20^th June but have to be managed between different groups wishing to hold their own commemorations.

Speeches, songs and Garda harassment

The Annual Wolfe Tone commemoration organised by the Wolfe Tone Commemoration Committee took place over the weekend with members of a number of groups and Independent Republicans in attendance.

A Socialist Republican Colour party led the march up from the bottom of the road, turning in to the graveyard through a side gate and taking up positions in front and to one side of the monument, at ordú scíthe (parade rest) position but with flags held high.

*Colour party in front of Wolfe Tone monument, Bodenstown Churchyard (*Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Behind the colour party followed a crowd carrying banners bearing the legends “Irish Republicans against NATO”, “We serve Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland” and an assortment of flags including green-and-gold Starry Ploughs, Irish Tricolour, Palestinian and Basque national flags.

The event was chaired by a young Socialist Republican who spoke about the importance of the event before introducing a representative of a midland Republican commemoration group who read a short message of solidarity.

This was followed by a socialist republican accompanying himself on guitar singing The Three Flowers.³

The main oration was delivered by veteran Independent East Tyrone Republican Margaret McKearney who linked the past with the present, including the current housing crisis, the British occupation and the Irish State’s push to join PESCO and NATO military alliances.

*Musician performing The Three Flowers* *at the Wolfe Tone monument* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

*Veteran Republican from Tyrone delivering the oration at the commemoration event* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

There was a clear message at the event that the push towards NATO will be energetically resisted at every turn by the people of Ireland.

Wreaths were laid and a minute’s silence was observed, while the colour party lowered the flags in memory of all those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the ongoing struggle for Irish Freedom. The event was brought to a close with the musician playing and singing Amhrán na bhFiann.

A handful of Gardaí⁴ in uniform and in plainclothes (Special Branch, the political police) were parked outside the graveyard watching people arriving and leaving but at that point having no direct interaction with those attending the event.

*Part of long tail-back cause by Garda checkpoint very near to Bodenstown Churchyard after the commemoration event* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

*Gardaí in uniform and Special Branch in plain clothes harassing and attempting to intimidate people who had attended the commemoration event* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

However, once the event concluded, the Gardaí set up a checkpoint at the bottom of the road and began to harass and attempt to intimidate drivers of vehicles, stopping them, asking for identification, where they were from etc, causing a long tailback.

This is part of the regular harassment of Irish Republicans by police on both sides of the British Border.

“The Father of Irish Republicanism”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798) was formally a member of the Church of Ireland⁵ congregation (Anglican), in his time the dominant religious group in England-occupied Ireland but also one of the smallest.

No-one could be elected to the Irish Parliament unless of that congregation.

In the early 19^th Century a section of the Irish bourgeoisie, nearly all Anglican or of the other Protestant churches, “dissenters”, wished to develop the Irish economy free of interference, control, patronage and bribery associated with being an English colony.

Many of them understood the need for a strong base in the population, for which they recognised the need to include representation for the majority population in the country, the Catholics, along with the most populous of the Protestants, the Presbyterians.⁶

When the liberal but pro-English Crown Henry Grattan brought the issue to a vote in the Westminster Parliament, his motion failed due to many MPs’ sectarianism or vested interests, a situation which continued for decades afterwards.⁷

That seemed to point to revolution as the only logical way forward.

Theobald Wolfe Tone was one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen in October 1971, the first broad Republican organisation in Ireland, which soon developed a comprehensive revolutionary agenda, for Irish independence and a Republic based on universal male suffrage.⁸

In order to accomplish a successful uprising, they invited assistance from Republican France and planned a simultaneous uprising across Ireland, with particular concentration on Antrim (largely Presbyterian and Anglican), Wexford and Wicklow, Midlands and Mayo (largely Catholic).

*Colour party leading a march towards the Wolfe Tone monument* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Spies and informers working for the English occupation betrayed some of their plans and most of the Leinster Directorate of the United Irishmen, including Wolfe Tone, were arrested, a disaster for uprising plans in Dublin but also for overall leadership in Leinster.

The 1798 Rising had initial great success in the south-east, particularly in Wexford but was quickly and bloodily suppressed in the Midlands and in Antrim. Mayo rose when a too-small detachment of French soldiers arrived under Humbert in Kilalla but they were outnumbered and beaten.

Tone was was unapologetic at his trial, was sentenced to death by hanging but appears to have attempted to take his own life while awaiting execution, surviving for a few days in great pain before dying on 19^th November 1798 as British and Orange loyalist repression swept the country⁹.

*Wolfe Tone Monument by Edward Delaney (d.2009) at S.E entrance to Stephen’s Green, Dublin city centre* (image sourced: *Internet*)

Many leaders of the United Irishmen are honoured in song, writing and in commemorative events to this day but Theobald Wolfe Tone is still the most widely remembered of them all.

End.

*The Colour Party and some of the participants line up for a group photo by the monument* (Photo: *AIA*)

FOOTNOTES

1Thomas Davis (1814-1845), journalist, author of the song A Nation Once Again and other works, also co-founder of The Nation newspaper.

2Prior to its split resulting in Provisional Sinn Féin and the later split resulting in the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

3Composed by Norman G. Reddin, a Republican ballad honouring the memory of three United Irish leaders, Robert Emmet, Michael Dwyer and Wolfe Tone. Both Tone and Emmet were sentenced to execution, the latter carried out in 1803 on Thomas Street in Dublin. Dwyer was transported to exile in Australia where he was later accused of planning an uprising in New South Wales for which he was twice imprisoned and tried but exonerated, became Police Chief in Liverpool, Sydney in 1813 but was imprisoned again in 1825 for alleged non-payment of a £100 debt, contracted dysentery, was released again and died very soon afterwards.

4Police force of the Irish State.

5A branch of the Church of England, the state religion of the UK of which their Monarch is the titular head (in addition to being the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces).

6“Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter”, as Wolfe Tone famously called the alliance.

7In May 1808 Grattan proposed emancipation in the House of Commons, with certain qualifications, but his motion was defeated by 281 votes to 128. In June 1812 the Commons accepted, by 225 votes to 106, a motion in favour of considering Catholic claims. An emancipation Bill, introduced in February 1813, received a second reading but was lost in committee by a narrow margin. Frustration at this lack of progress led to the formation of the Catholic Association in 1823 (of which Wolfe Tone was an active member). Parliament passed an Act to restrict the Association’s activities two years later.

8Very few radical or revolutionary individuals, not to mention movements of the 18^th (or even much of the 19^th or early 20^th) Centuries proposed universal female suffrage, one reason why the 1916 Proclamation of Irish Independence is such a remarkable document, beginning its address with the words “Irishmen and Irish women”.

9Which many, in particular Protestants, fled the country to escape, some settling in the United States and in Canada. The great Catholic emigration from Ireland did not occur until the Great Hunger of the mid-19th Century and later.

USEFUL LINKS

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/parliamentandireland/overview/catholic-emancipation/

DRIPPING WITH PROPAGANDA – BUT ALSO REVEALING

On July 6, 2023July 7, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

NEWS & VIEWS NO 4. – Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

A recent article appearing briefly on breakingnews.ie was packed with some of the typical anti-Russian propaganda of the current western mass media but also, unintentionally, revealed the purpose of the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Whether one is pro-NATO, pro-Russia or of some other position, it can be instructive to dissect this mass media propaganda to which we are subjected daily in western states.

Let’s take the headline first, which serves not just as an ‘attractor’ or ‘hook’ to draw the reader but also as a statement in itself and, in this case, very definitely as propaganda.

“NATO prepares military plans to defend against bruised but unbowed Russia” is the headline. So straightaway we are being told that NATO needs to defend itself against Russia, which is turning truth completely on its head.

Firstly, where in the world is the Russian Federation attacking NATO? In Ukraine? But then the Ukrainian state is not actually in NATO, is it? Unless what is meant is US/NATO’s plans to get the Ukrainian state into NATO, of course, which they’re generally vague about.

But if not there, where? Nowhere, of course.

Who threatens whom?

As to reversing reality, one look at a map of Europe with NATO states indicated makes it clear that it is not NATO that needs to defend itself but Russia — and bears out the Russian line that one of the reasons they went to war was to stop their encirclement by NATO.

*Map of European states currently in NATO* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Then, we need to consider that NATO is not a country or one region in the world that could need defence. No, it is a military alliance of European states with the United States. And if it ever was a defensive alliance, that ‘reason’ for its existence disappeared with the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Far from scrapping NATO or even freezing its expansion then, US/NATO started collecting former USSR states into its alliance until nearly every state on Russia’s eastern borders had joined the alliance or was friendly towards it and hostile towards Russia.

The former Ukrainian regime was friendly towards Russia until the coup in 2014 by pro-NATO elements, which are the regime now in power and responsible for a decade of cultural attacks on – and artillery bombardment of – the ethnic Russian population of the Donbas area.

*Moldovan troops in joint NATO military exercise in Ukraine, 2017.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

Only a propaganda-blinded fool or a liar could deny that Russia has been and is under threat from US/ NATO, rather than the reverse.

We could do with looking at the record of states in invasion of – and interference in – other countries.

The USA is the founder and leader of NATO; since the end of WWII, the USA has been involved in 34 armed actions against smaller nations, not including coups and proxy wars. This includes initiating 81% of all global armed conflicts from 1945 to 2001.

The United Kingdom is a major NATO member and, with direct involvement in 35 armed conflicts since WWI, has exceeded the USA’s tally by one and France’s tally of 33, also an important NATO member, by two.

How many Russian Federation armed conflicts since it came into existence? Thirteen, mostly on or around its own state’s territory, whereas the armed conflicts of the USA, UK and France were mostly outside their own territories and far from their borders.

So who has more reason to fear attack from whom?

“What we see in general is that the Russians are careful around NATO. They are not seeking a conflict with NATO. I think that is a sign that they are very, very busy,” the article quotes NATO Chairman, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer saying. “Busy” with what, is he inferring?

Nuclear weapons

“NATO, as an organisation, does not provide weapons or ammunition to Ukraine and has sought to avoid being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia,” states the article.

True, as far as that goes but how many NATO states are supplying the Ukrainian state with military equipment? It would be quicker to list how many are not supplying it!

In that quoted sentence, there is almost an admission that were it not for Russia’s nuclear weapons, the US/ NATO forces would be willing to intervene directly to attack and invade Russia.

Indeed, they may still do so. NATO Chairman, Admiral Rob Bauer, in briefing the press, “laid out the biggest revamp to the organisation’s military plans since the Cold War” (of course for purely defensive reasons!).

“US President Joe Biden and his Nato counterparts are set to endorse a major shake-up of the alliance’s planning system at a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, next week,” we are told.

“About 100 aircraft take to the skies in that territory each day, and a total of 27 warships are operating in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, with those numbers set to rise. In new plans, NATO aims to have up to 300,000 troops ready to move to its eastern flank within 30 days.”

Of course, weapons and military transport require funding (a big source of profits for the arms industries). “In 2014, NATO committed to move towards spending 2% of GDP on their military budgets by 2024” (2014 was the year of the US/NATO-inspired coup, 8 years before the invasion).

“At their July 11-12 summit, the leaders will set the 2% figure as a spending floor, rather than a ceiling to aim for.”

“Russia bruised but unbowed”

When wishing to force the enemy to surrender, it may be sufficient to bombard it from the air and sea. But in order to extract its riches, the situation requires either invading troops on the ground or a compliant regime.

In this context it is significant that Admiral Baur commented that of Russia’s ground forces, around “94% is now engaged in the war in Ukraine”, meaning that the state’s principal ground defence forces are already engaged in war and presumably taking casualties.

But Russia’s armed forces are “bruised but by no means bowed” in the war in Ukraine, commented Admiral Bauer, which looks very much like an admission that pushing Russian forces into a proxy war in the Ukraine was intended to sap Russia’s military strength.

So that Russia can be invaded, carved up into US/NATO dependencies, its rich natural resources plundered for the benefit of western imperialist states? No, surely not, the USA, UK and France would never go to war for imperialist plunder, would they?

End.

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/nato-prepares-military-plans-to-defend-against-bruised-but-unbowed-russia-1496880.html

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia

IRISH NEUTRALITY – WHO CARES?

On June 28, 2023July 5, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Ireland, Mass Media Criticism, NATO, Political Analysis, US Imperialism1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time main article: 6 mins.)

A packed public meeting in Dublin city centre on Saturday listened to and applauded prominent people speaking against the Irish State becoming part of military alliances, whether PESCO¹ (“NATO by stealth”²) or NATO itself.

The high-profile panel of speakers chaired by Irish MEP Clare Daly featured fellow MEP Mick Wallace, Sevim Dagdalen (MP Die Linke), Medea Benjamin (founder of Code Pink) and Anne Wright (ex-US Army Major and opponent of the US-Iraq War).

Celebrated anti-imperialist rapper Lowkey was also a speaker as was Yanis Varoufakis (ex-Syrza)³ who addressed the meeting by recorded video from abroad and applauded the Irish for their long resistance to colonialism and urged them to be proud of their state’s neutrality.

Yanis Varoufakis’ recorded speech video screened at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

BACKGROUND

There is a constitutional impediment to the Irish state’s participating in a war partnership with another state and during WW2 the state’s official position was neutrality.

However, it was always a pro-Allied neutrality with British downed airmen allowed to cross over into UK territory and US servicemen often crossing the UK border to visit the ‘south’, while German downed airmen were interned for the duration of the War.

The impediment is not absolute and is usually referred to as the ‘Triple Lock’, listing the three conditions which would enable to government to send more than 12 troops overseas:

a mandate from the United Nations
a Government decision
and a Dáil vote ⁴

In recent years some politicians and public commentators have floated the idea that the Irish state could rejoin the British Commonwealth and, since the war in the Ukraine, a discourse has arisen that the State needs to join an external military alliance in order to protect itself from Russia.

Sevim Dagdalen, Die Linke party MP, speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

The Irish Times/Ipsos poll in April, amid criticisms of not following best practice in its design and even accusations of trying to steer respondents towards favouring joining some external military alliance, delivered two thirds clearly against the Irish state doing any such thing.

Russophobic propaganda has speculated on the activities of Russian trawlers in the Irish Sea. This is entirely a whipped-up alarm and discussion without the slightest foundation in fact since Russia has never presented the slightest threat, militarily or politically, to the Irish people.

On the other hand, Britain has invaded and occupied Ireland for over 800 years and is still in possession of one-fifth of its territory and has substantial economic and financial interests in the country as, more recently, have the USA and European Union states.

The UK’s Royal Navy frequently enters Irish national waters and the State has regularly permitted its ships, along with warships of other NATO countries, to dock in Irish harbours. And also the Royal Air Force, it has recently emerged, to patrol Irish territorial air space.

As part of this false alarm and discourse, the Irish Government⁵ recently founded the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy which was scheduled to meet last week in Cork and Galway, then for two days in Dublin Castle.

The President of the State, Michael D. Higgins, in an unusual intervention during an interview with the Examiner expressed concern at what he perceived as the “drift towards NATO” and criticised the composition of the speakers and chairperson of this organisation as being pro-NATO.

Michael D commented on “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it” and described its chair Louise Richardson, as a person “with a very large DBE – Dame of the British Empire”.

President Higgins apologised later for what he said was “a throway remark” about Richardson but did not withdraw his remarks about the overall composition of the Forum which has indeed been criticised by others, including Richard Boyd Barrett TD⁶ and Senator Frances Black.

THE DUBLIN MEETING

Varoufakis referred to Ireland as though the nation had won its independence, as was the case with every speaker that followed (with the exception of Lowkey).

A member of the audience was heard to remark ironically to another that he was grateful he had attended as heretofore he hadn’t been aware of Ireland’s ‘independence’.

Lowkey, the British-based rapper, tore the illusion of Irish state neutrality to tatters by recounting the use of Irish airports not only for US Army flights under Air America through Shannon, but also airlines run by the CIA and others using other airports in Irish state territory.

*Lowkey, anti-imperialist rapper from London, speaking at the meeting in Dublin.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The rapper exposed the ‘neutrality’ of the Irish government in training soldiers going to fight in Ukraine and also in its continued support for the Israeli State and was cheered when he declared that, as an Iraqi, he was proud that his country had “kicked the ass of the British”.

In a masterful exercise in research-backed criticism, Lowkey went on to strip the pretence of independence and impartiality from the Government-founded “Consultative Forum”, exposing the imperialist and even NATO background of the main panel members and its chairperson.

All the members of the Neutrality Who Cares panel were effective speakers and made useful points although it was curious to hear one of them denouncing “Russian fascists” without commenting on the fascist units in the Ukrainian regime’s national army.

Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

It was Lowkey who drove the sharpest and longest nails into the verbal crucifixion of the Irish Government’s drive towards NATO and who brought the loudest cheers from his mostly Irish audience.

Even celebrated speaker Daly did not come very close, though she too exposed the propaganda of the Government and pro-NATO cheerleaders. The MEP debunked the excuse of protecting underground communication cables, pointing out that 25% of them are out of action regularly.

The Irish MEP also lampooned the idea of any underwater cable being protected by NATO, considering where the responsibility for the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipeline lies!⁷

Finally she warned the audience to be on the look out for an attempt to remove the Triple Lock under some kind of excuse as a first step to permit the Government to enter a military alliance.

Clare Daly MEP speaking at the *Neutrality Who Cares* meeting on Saturday (*Photo:* Rebel Breeze)

A PART OF IRELAND ALREADY IN NATO

It was left to a youth member of the audience in the Q&A section, reading a statement on behalf of the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation, to point out that a part of Ireland is already in NATO, viz. the Six Counties, occupied by Britain and a part of the United Kingdom.

The youth called for a broad front to unite around opposition to becoming part of an external military alliance and imperialism (see full statement in appendix). Small flyers advocating the same course of action had been distributed inside the meeting earlier.

The People Before Profit party also distributed leaflets against joining NATO to people attending the meeting.

Indeed, it is hard to see why the presence of NATO in a part of Ireland should be so markedly missing from the panel’s speeches. Since it cannot have been accidental we must ponder what the rationale for its omission could have been.

Do those on the panel agree with the colonial occupation of a part of Ireland? That seems hard to believe, at least of some of them. Or perhaps they believe its discussion would be a distraction from the neutrality issue and if so, how can that be?

Or is it that they seek the support of sections of Irish society who are comfortable with the continued occupation and partition of Ireland? If so, they are seeking to build the movement against Irish membership of NATO in terms they think acceptable to timid sections of the middle class.

When resolute action becomes necessary or when reaction starts to bite, those sections will fade out of the anti-NATO movement. For practical as well as for ideological reasons, the campaign must appeal to the working class on an unashamedly anti-colonial and anti-imperialist basis.

Protest banner at Government’s Forum for International Security meeting in Cork while Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister, on far left of photo) was speaking (*Photo sourced:* Internet)

Wherever the Government’s Forum has gone, it has encountered public opposition. It was picketed at its Cork and Galway venues, while inside the former, an anti-NATO banner was unfolded and many in the audience denounced the Government’s direction.

Even after the protesters had been hustled out, another stood up to denounce the chairperson’s speech before he too was manhandled away.

In Dublin Castle, venue for the Forum on Monday and Tuesday with a long history as administrative centre of British occupation, people against NATO, war or militarism and for Irish independence displayed banners and placards of protest and flew national flags.

Protesters inside a Dublin Castle courtyard against the Government Forum on International Security held inside the complex this week. (*Source photo:* Anti-Imperialist Action)

AIA Tweet featuring National TV broadcaster RTÉ quoting Irish Government leaders’ ridiculous comments on the display of Irish Republican flags by protestors outside main pedestrian entrance to Dublin Castle in the city centre.

IN CONCLUSION

The general mass media silence on the Neutrality Who Cares meeting in Dublin and in downplaying the protests against the Forum at all its locations is part of the Irish Gombeen class drive to join NATO, despite the well-known opposition of the wide Irish population.

It is not forgotten that when tens of thousands thronged Dublin streets marching against triple water service taxation and privatisation, how the mass media reported participation merely by “several thousand” or even “hundreds”.

Nevertheless the comments of the President of the State and remarks by some journalists in the mass media do reveal that even in their own sections, the Gombeens do not have it all their own way. In the general population, however, the mood is clearly for non-militarisation of Ireland.

If the anti-NATO movement remains active and militant and adopts a generally broad anti-imperialist stance, going to most sections of society but especially to the working class, the Gombeens’ drive towards participation in PESCO and NATO will be decisively defeated.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Permanent Structured Cooperation is the strange name of this proposed European Union-wide military alliance.

2As described by Clare Daly.

3Syriza is a Left social-democratic coalition party that was elected to government in Greece in 2015 on a promise to implement necessary social and economic reforms in the teeth of EU and other imperialist resistance. However, once the EU and the ECB began to tighten the screws, the resistance of the party’s leadership disintegrated. Varoufakis had been appointed finance minister and to give him his due, he tried to rally his cabinet colleagues around a program of non-compliance with EU diktats but was unsuccessful. Although it remains the main social-democratic opposition in Greece, the party has continued to slide in popularity in elections since.

4Irish UN peacekeeping forces exceeding 12 personnel have been sent overseas with those three conditions satisfied to many conflicts around the world, most notably Lebanon, where they have suffered some casualties and to the Congo, where they suffered many.

5The Irish Government is a coalition of two traditional main oppositional parties, Fianna Fáile and Fine Gael, with the Green Party. The Labour Party does not have a noticeably different position on external military alliance and Sinn Féin recently dropped their decades-long opposition to Irish membership of NATO and the EU.

6Barrett is a Teachta Dála (member of the Irish parliament) and member of the People Before Profit left-wing political party. Frances Black, with a successful career in singing, is an independent Senator in the same parliament who has sponsored a Bill to ban products from the illegal Israeli settlements. The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 was passed in full by the Senate in 2018, and passed its first vote in Dáil Éireann in early 2019. It was then sent for detailed scrutiny in the Oireachtas Select Committee on Foreign & Affairs and Trade. This review took place over several months, hearing from expert testimony and input, and in December 2019 the Committee also voted in favour of the bill. Since then the Government is delaying bringing it forward.

7Although direct proof is not yet available, circumstantial evidence points towards US armed forces’ responsibility and journalist Seymour Hersh (Pullitzer Prize winner for exposing the US military massacre in Mai Lai, Viet Nam and its subsequent attempted cover-up) has confirmed the US military’s responsibility on the basis of inside knowledge from his contacts.

APPENDIX

Text of statement read out during Q&A period of Neutrality – Who Cares public meeting in Dublin 24 June 2023:

Anti Imperialist Action Ireland hold the revolutionary position that Britain, NATO and any other imperialist power is not welcome in Ireland. Anti-Imperialist Action have been active in opposing all forms of imperialism in Ireland and have been to the fore in opposition to NATO.

NATO is a great threat to Ireland and the Irish People, and in realisation of that, we urge and call on everyone here to vocally oppose the presence of NATO in Ireland whether you be an anti-war activist, a Socialist Republican, an anti-Fascist, a trade unionist, or just against the presence of a foreign power in Ireland, get behind this position and ensure that your sons and daughters aren’t sent off to be slaughtered in illegal wars of conquest.

While all the focus has been about the push towards NATO for the 26 Counties we cannot forget that the Six Counties are already occupied by NATO by virtue of Britain’s illegal occupation. Only a militant broad front of progressive forces all across the 32 counties can make a firm stand against NATO’s presence in Ireland. Everyone has a part to play in such a broad front which Anti-Imperialist Action and others are working hard to establish.

Reject NATO. Britain and NATO out of Ireland now!

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/irish-people-overwhelmingly-support-military-neutrality-in-latest-poll-1290604.html

Anti-Imperialist Action statement on line: https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2023/06/21/the-free-states-imperialist-circus/?fbclid=IwAR27Y7HSZOJKgLe_oivFx828jHfUMFa4mNXADUY1jhFh1KaDsoxGmsxhN1Q

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230622-ireland-s-debate-on-neutrality-derailed-by-anti-nato-protest

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/06/22/ireland-should-not-be-squeamish-over-security-issues-micheal-martin-tells-ucc-forum/

https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/e2a6b-consultative-forum-on-international-security-policy/

BUILDING BRICS

On June 12, 2023September 11, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

For decades the US Dollar has dominated financial transactions across the world – backed not only by the USA’s industrial and agricultural output but by its imperialist domination of many economies and its military power.

But perhaps no longer, for now there is a serious competitor in the field, one with the acronym BRICS, from the first letter of the states that created it (in order of no significance): Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

Apart from the backing of powerful economies with more applying to join, this currency standard is based on the price of precious and semi-precious metals. The UK’s Sterling (and the Irish state’s, for a while) was based on silver but the Dollar has for many years been backed by … debt.

A currency is based on the assumption that every unit will be payable and backed by a unit (e.g. gold) of the declared value. But if the value unit markers of the US Dollar, in coins, notes, cheques and credit transfers were to be presented to the US Treasury, it could never pay them.^¹

In fact, it could not even pay a significant percentage of them and has been running a national defaulting on debt currency for many years, this year once again deciding to continue doing so to the tune of $31.5 trillion.

But is it really “redeemable” if all are presented? (*Image sourced: Internet*)

The USA has been able to continue doing this to date because so many of the world’s economies have been dominated by US Imperialism or in alliance with it; they fear that calling in the debt would lead to the collapse of the USA system and to their own interlinked financial structures.

BRICS consists of a financial alliance of economies of which their leaders for one reason or another feel in their interests to end the world dominance of the Dollar.

Previously, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said that there are 12 countries interested in joining the initiative.

Of the 12, she mentioned seven countries specifically, namely Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, Argentina, Mexico and Nigeria. In March this year Russia announced its support for Algeria’s bid to join BRICS.

In April the expansion of that list interested in joining to 19 states was announced with formal applications from Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

And with expressions of interest from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

COMMUNICATIONS, COMMON CURRENCY & LENDING BANK

Plans for an optical fibre submarine communications cable between BRIC members – partly motivated to avoid US National Security Agency spying on telecommunications in and out of the USA – have not advanced far since first discussed in 2012 but have not been abandoned.

Likewise, discussions of a common currency have not come to fruition yet either. However that may be more imminent.

As challengers to Western-led international currency, BRICS “in the order of the scale of GDP, now collectively outweigh not only the reigning hegemon, the United States, but the entire G-7 weight class put together” (former White House senior advisor Joseph W. Sullivan).^²

The same commentator believes that such a common currency has a much greater chance of stability than the Eurozone, because of the geographic diversity of its members, which enables a broader range of goods and services.

The biggest attraction for applicants to join is probably access to loans from the New Development Bank to members for infrastructure projects, which is the NDB’s main advertised purpose. Heretofore, the IMF and the World Bank have been the main external lenders.

Both the latter institutions have imposed harmful changes on borrowing economies, often driving them further and deeper into debt and into greater dependency on western imperialism. Those lending institutions have also supported corrupt and oppressive regimes.

The NDB has authorised lending up to $34 billion annually, with South Africa the HQ for the African continent with a starting capital of $50 billion ($10 billion from each of the five founders) and so far has 53 projects underway worth around $15 billion total.

Should the NDB prove its ability to issue loans to nationally-desired projects without the penurious and destructive conditions currently attached to IMF and World Bank funding, many, many regimes in the underdeveloped world are likely to apply to BRICS for membership.

And should client regimes currently dependent on western imperialism refuse to jump across to BRICS, they may well face coups from more nationally-ambitious sections of their elites or insurrections from below.

IS BRICS A GOOD OR A BAD THING?

Some anti-imperialists, including some socialists, have been celebrating the creation of BRICS, some even proclaiming it as the financial reflection of a new anti-imperialist order.

Of the five founding economies, only one claims to be socialist. Capitalist economies, we know, tend to develop into imperialist ones, sometimes but not always invading the countries of other economies but always exporting surplus capital there to exploit labour and natural resources.

So some or all of the capitalist economies in BRICS currently are likely to become imperialist also.

That apart, having much or even all of the world’s economies divided between two blocs may give weak economies opportunities they would not otherwise have or at least a choice and perhaps the opportunity to bargain for the conditions of their relationship to world finance.

In other words, a return in many fundamental ways to the division of the world before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

*A breakthrough the current financial structure to a new one?*

THREAT OF WAR?

But does this bring the threat of world war, arms race, etc, as seemed to be always present between the USA and the USSR?

Possibly but the threat of world war is already very much with us, as US/NATO uses the Ukrainian regime as a proxy in its decades-long threatening encirclement of Russia, and also in its posture (not unrelated) towards Iran and the USA’s world competitor China.

The working class in countries that are part of BRICS will still be exploited and will need to overthrow their respective national ruling classes if they are to end that exploitation and also save the environment from destruction.

Imperialism always means war whether direct or by proxy, small or large, against competing economies or people resisting domination and exploitation. Since the end of WW2 alone the USA has been involved in 201 military interventions in 51 regions.^³

In the same period, the UK has carried out 28 military interventions in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and Europe^⁴ and France 32 in similar regions.^⁵ Competition for world resources between Germany and the UK and with France led to WW1 and again to WW2^⁶.

BRICS has been created anyway, whatever our opinion and is set to grow significantly, causing some big changes in the world as a result. In the short term this development is likely to be to the advantage of the smaller economies and even nations struggling for independence.

End.

FOOTNOTES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States

2. Writing for American magazine Foreign Policy

3. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001

4. https://www.historyguy.com/british_wars_1945present.htm

5. https://www.historyguy.com/french_wars_1945-present.html

6. Other states were of course involved, including the imperial competition for the Pacific and Asia between the USA/ UK and Japan in WW2 with the SE Asian peoples, in particular communist-led Chinese fighting Japanese imperialism and of course in Europe the mighty contribution and sacrifice of the USSR against the fascist powers. But the initiation of both world wars was competition and contention between Germany, France and the UK.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65784030

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2345663/us-initiated-81-global-armed-conflicts-from-1945-to-2001

https://www.historyguy.com/british_wars_1945present.htm

https://www.historyguy.com/french_wars_1945-present.html

News & Views No.4: IRISH POPULATION STATISTICS MISSING MILLIONS

On June 1, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Environmental, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Mass Media Criticism, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

The media announces that “the population of Ireland has reached 5 million … for the first time in 170 years”. Interesting – and a barefaced lie! The population of Ireland passed 5 million some time ago and is actually around 6.5 million now.¹

Ireland remained with negative population growth until near the end of the last century – mismanaged for most of the population first by the British occupiers of the whole of the island, then by a combination of the native neo-colonial bourgeoisie and of the settler colonial ruling class.

Filling in a census form from which population statistics can be extracted (*Photo sourced: Internet*)

For more than a century the population of Ireland stood at around 5 million, static despite a high birth rate. This was mathematically possible only through continual massive emigration – mostly to English-speaking regimes: Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

But it is true that 170 years ago it was more than 5 million – in fact it was around 8.5 million. And it is worth reflecting on how they were able to produce enough food domestically to feed that entire population while now, with a smaller population, we import as much as 80% from abroad.²

It was the Great Hunger that wiped out much of the earlier population, statistics somewhat hiding the pain and sorrow of millions of Irish in death, disease and emigration — and the great transfer of land for cultivation (and rent) to pasturage, with its dangerous environmental impact.

It provided an opportunity for growth of the Catholic Irish capitalist class, the Gombeens, huckstering money-lenders buying up the lands of afflicted neighbours.

The kind of class that the British could depend on in 1921 to manage the neo-colony and to murder and jail those of national liberation³.

Emigration kept population stats steady and, combined with unemployment, ensured a low internal home market for development. An educated workforce and natural resources could be developed but the Gombeen class opened it all to foreign multinationals rather than develop it themselves.

Even with foreign exploitation of the workforce at home, the education system turned out mostly emigration fodder: the Irish tax-payers funded an education system to provide a literate and numerate English-speaking workforces for capitalist exploitation abroad.

No wonder the Irish political class declined to give the Irish abroad a vote in the Irish state – unlike for decades any other state in the European Market. Yet during the 1930s through to the 1960s, money sent home by Irish migrants accounted for an estimated 30% of the Irish State’s economy.⁴

The Irish state remains a neo-colony with low taxation and other incentives for foreign companies to take over our few industries⁵ and local and foreign property speculators to rake in profits out of the despair of homelessness or of struggling to meet rent or mortgage payments.

A neo-colonial market for produce of foreign companies and to plunder not only our labour force, not only our natural resources on land, sea and wind and but even our infrastructures in transport and communication, energy, health service, water supply and even our city sanitation.

TRUNCATED

The announced statistics were truncated, appropriate perhaps for a truncated country, with the history behind those statistics not so much truncated as obliterated.

That is our present and our past but not how the future has to be – we can write our own future but we won’t do it by putting a mark on a ballot paper.

FOOTNOTES

1Worst of all the statistics were quoted from the State’s Central Statistics Office. The reality: https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ireland-population

2The highest estimates: https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=Ireland-Agricultural-Sectors#:~:text=Ireland%20imports%20around%2080%20percent,from%20its%20premier%20trading%20partner. And most of all, incredibly – potatoes!

3The Irish Civil War or Counterrevolution, 1922-1923.

4I have read this in the past but am unable now to find the reference; however I have posted some references on the figures of remittances from Irish emigrants.

5 For a few examples of foreign takeover: Irish stout, beer and lagers (Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp); Irish whiskey (Paddy, Jameson, Bushmills); cigarettes (Afton); preserved vegetables (Erin); aviation (Aer Lingus); public transport (Transport for Ireland; LUAS); sugar (Irish sugar beet replaced by subsidised cane sugar from the USA); woodlands (Coillte).

SOURCES

Population: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/census-2022-shows-irelands-population-over-five-million-people-1482478.html
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ireland-population

Ireland not feeding itself: https://www.export.gov/apex/article2?id=Ireland-Agricultural-Sectors#:~:text=Ireland%20imports%20around%2080%20percent,from%20its%20premier%20trading%20partner.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ti/irelandstradeingoods2017/food2017/
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/why-does-ireland-import-44-000-tonnes-of-british-potatoes-each-year-1.3721341

Remittances from emigrants: https://www.theirishstory.com/2019/02/08/invisible-income-remittances-from-the-diaspora-sustained-ireland-for-over-a-century/#:~:text=to%20emigrate%20themselves.-,The%20money%20that%20emigrants%20sent%20back%20to%20Ireland%20ensured%20the,and%2020th%20century%20Ireland.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/rural-ireland-would-not-have-survived-without-money-being-sent-home-by-emigrants-1.4081919
https://www.thejournal.ie/irish-emigrant-remittances-uk-1405087-Apr2014/