Democratic Palestine : 7 (ص 19)
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- Democratic Palestine : 7 (ص 19)
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At our annual convention in 1981, where the electoral
strategy was intensely debated, there was some opposition
from members who have an inherent suspicion, based on his-
torical facts, of such a strategy. The majority however were
won to such a course of action by the soundness of the debate
and perhaps to no little degree by our National Director of Pub-
licity, Denny Morrison, who at the height of the debate asked:
«Who objects to our liberating Ireland with an Armalite in one
hand and a ballot paper in the other?»
Since then we have participated in several elections. In
the elections to the Stormont Assembly in Belfast in October
‘82, Sinn Fein gained 64,191 votes, winning five seats. This
represented 35% of the nationalist vote in the occupied six
counties. In the Westminister elections in June '83, we
increased that vote by 60%, gaining102,701 votes or 43.5% of
the nationalist vote in the six counties. The remaining 56.5% of
the nationalist vote went to the reformist Social Democratic
and Labour Party (SDLP). Our electoral strategy must, of
course, involve Sinn Fein in attempting to replace that party as
the majority nationalist voice. We can never, of course, hope to
totally erode the SDLP vote as a substantial part of their elec-
toral vote comes from the nationalist middle class whose
interests cannot be served by a radical republican party.
Sinn Fein has also won three out of four municipal by-elec-
tions which we have contested in the past fourteen months.
In June of this year, we contested the direct elections to
the EEC parliament on the basis of opposition to EEC member-
ship and NATO. We contested the elections both in the
occupied six counties and in the Free State. In the six counties
we maintained our percentage share of a reduced poll, getting
91,000 votes. The SDLP leader had a substantial increase in
his vote as a result of 30,000 unionist voters casting their votes
for the nominally nationalist SDLP to ensure a defeat for Sinn
Fein. However we do not believe that they can sustain that vote
and especially not in next year's municipal elections when we
shall witness the most important election to date in the struggle
for political representation of the nationalist people in the six
counties.
In the Free State we polled 54,672 votes in the EEC elec-
tions, giving us an ail-lreland total of 146,148 votes, represent-
ing 8.09% of all first preference votes cast throughout Ireland.
Fianna Fail, which is the largest party in the country and which
gained most votes in the EEC elections, polled 438,946 votes,
representing 24.31% of all first preference votes cast. So
Clearly we still have much work to do both organisationally and
in making our policies relevant to all our people, especially in
the Free State.
IRA operations have continued abreast with Sinn Fein’s
electoral strategy and it would seem that there is an ongoing
refinement of their operations for maximum overall political
effect.
On international solidarity...
lrish republicanism has always been internationaiist in its
outlook, an outlook which is probably best summed up by
James Connolly who was executed by the British for his part in
the 1916 rising against British rule in Ireland: «We mean to be
free, and in every friend of tyranny we recognise our enemy,
though he were as Irish as our hills.» And it is probably best evi-
denced in the IRA volunteers who gave their lives in the Inter-
national Brigades fighting the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.
Today we correctly identify with oppressed and nationally
dispossessed throughout the world. Solidarity, because of
resources and geography, is all too often restricted to publicis-
ing other struggles and moral support which we recognise as
being of little comfort to the victims of Shatila, Kassinga or
British imperialism in Ireland.
We particularly identify with our Palestinian brothers and
sisters whose national dispossesion, like our own problems, is
rooted in the imperialist duplicity of the British government.
We have had a shared history: imperialist oppression.
We have a shared experience: struggle
We shall have a shared future: victory.
What has been the British response to the growing
strength of the Republican Movement?
British policy in Ireland has meant the gradual combining,
over a period of years, of all parts of the British government
machinery in pursuit of its desired objective which is the
maintenance of the status quo in Ireland for ideological,
strategic and economic reasons. This has meant the employ-
ment of political, social, economic and military initiatives
backed up by a well-developed psychological warfare
apparatus.
Politically it appears to bring about a settlement in the six
counties, which it hopes to secure through agreement between
the SDLP and the unionist parties - the consent of the Dublin
government requiring no more than SDLP agreement. Initially
this meant the introduction of some of the more obviously
necessary political reforms, which in no way threatened the
British occupation itself, in an attempt to gain nationalist sup-
port and politically isolate republicanism.
Militarily they set about attempting the total defeat of the
IRA. In its politico-military relationships the British army was in
the ascendency with disastrous results for the British govern-
ment's plans. British army excesses against the nationalist
population, in combination with a murder campaign directed
against nationalists by loyalist murder gangs, destroyed any
benefits which the minor reforms may have gained for the
British government.
Despite this, the SDLP’s desperation for a share of power
led them, with the support of the Dublin government, into an
alliance with a section of the unionists in 1974. lronically this
attempt at a settlement suitable to British requirements was
thwarted by loyalist paramilitaries and the ultra-reactionary
section of unionist politicians who had maintained the six coun-
ties for the British government for over fifty years. In the inter-
vening years all other efforts at bringing such a situation about
again failed, although at present another attempt is in
embryonic form.
Over that period the British have refined their politico-milit-
ary strategy but with the same ultimate objective. Politically
they have continued to seek the support of the would-be opin-
ion makers of the nationalist middle class while attempting, to
some extent, to be more selective in their application of
oppression; with republican political and military activists being
more accurately targeted for assasination and the prison
camps. The activities of the loyalist murder gangs, over which
British intelligence either has control or strong influence, were
tailored to meet British intelligence goals: their attempted
assassination of Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and five
other members of Sinn Fein some months ago being an exam-
ple.
«The Law» according to Brigadier Gerard Kitson, the chief
theorist of British counterrevolutionary action, «should be no
more» than a cover for the disposal of «unwanted members of
the society». And so, in several variations, it has been used in
Ireland to remove those who are opposed to the British occu-
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