POW's speech to TAYAD conference, Berlin, 18th March, 2006

[Ciaran]

POW's speech to TAYAD conference Berlin March 18th 2006

POW's SPEECH

Prisoners Speech. Berlin 18th March 2006.

The Republican Prisoners in British and Irish jails send fraternal and revolutionary greetings to our comrades throughout the world and especially to our comrades from TAYAD here in Germany and in Turkey. We wish to commend you on your 20 years of struggle in support of our brothers and sisters engaged in the revolutionary struggle against right wing reactionaries and we continue to support you in your battle against repression.

Just as 2006 marks the 20th anniversary of your struggle it also marks two significant milestones for us as Irish Republicans in our struggle to end British military occupation and British political interference in Irish affairs. 2006 marks the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising and also the 25th anniversary of the IRA/INLA hungerstrikes in which 10 revolutionary Irish soldiers were martyred.

At Easter 1916 a small dedicated band of Republican and socialist soldiers rose up against British imperial rule in Ireland and seized key strategic points in Dublin city and other areas of the country.
Britain was engaged in an imperial war in France and this proved an opportunity to strike when the British were in difficulty. The rebel leader and poet Patrick Pearse stood at the steps of the GPO in Dublin and issued a proclamation from the provisional government of the Irish Republic to the people of Ireland. The Provisional government stated “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people.”
This statement was, in effect a declaration of war on the illegal British presence in Ireland but was also a statement of defiance. The Proclamation further stated that “The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious to the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.”
This was a call to the Irish people to put aside the artificial differences created by the British through the colonial practice of ‘divide and conquer’. The proclamation ended with the immortal words
“In this supreme hour the Irish Nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.”
That small band of patriots who took on the might of the British empire were willing to sacrifice all in the name of the cause. The leaders of the rebellion were taken away by the British and executed, the revolutionary socialist James Connolly was shot tied to a chair because the wounds he received during the fighting would not all him to stand. The spirit of sacrifice awakened the Irish people who then declared their independence on the 21st of January 1919 and who, led by the IRA, fought a war for independence until 1921. Britain today still refuses to allow Ireland its right to full independence and that is why we are imprisoned today.

This spirit of sacrifice was again shown by IRA and INLA volunteers in 1981 when following a five year prison struggle for political status, they embarked on the weapon of last resort, the hunger strike.
These revolutionaries had spent five years wrapped in Blankets because they refused to wear prison uniforms which would mark them out as criminals not prisoners of war. They spent weeks, months and years locked in tiny cells, only taken out to be beaten and abused by the prison authorities. They smeared excrement on their walls because of the beatings and abuse they received when attempting to use toilet facilities and they did not see their families for years on end because to receive a visit they had to adorn a convicts uniform. Led by Bobby Sands the republican soldiers died slow and agonising deaths before finally forcing the British dictator Margaret Thatcher to grant them political status. The political status that Bobby Sands and his comrades fought and died for was signed away by former comrades at the behest of British authorities in the negotiations that led to the so called Good Friday Agreement which was agreed eight years ago next month. Again IRA volunteers are labelled criminals by the British and again we were forced to fight for political status. Although we won segregation from criminals and pro British loyalist paramilitaries in 2003 through a summer of protest that included destroying cells and a no wash/dirty protest, we have yet to regain full political status and as a consequence are forced to endure an extremely restrictive regime. Access to washing, educational and recreation facilities is restricted and we are confined to our cells for 23 hour periods. Visiting relatives are also faced with a hostile prison administration which regularly refuses to allow them in for a variety of invented reasons. It is inevitable that if the British government do not restore political status to us as prisoners of war then at some stage in the future we will be forced to re engage in another prison protest.

The revolutionaries associated with TAYAD are no strangers to sacrifice and we remember their heroic deeds with pride and reflect upon them as a source of inspiration. We also remember revolutionaries around the world who continue to do battle with repressive regimes and we are proud to call you brothers in struggle. Today we face the monsters of imperialism, colonialism, fascism, racism and capitalism. We will conclude with the words of IRA volunteers Bobby Sands from his piece ‘I Fought a Monster Today’
"My body is broken and cold. I’m lonely and I need comfort. From somewhere afar I hear those familiar voices which keep me going: ‘We are with you, son. We are with you. Don’t let them beat you.’
"I need to hear those voices. They anger the monster. I retreats. The voices scare the devils. Sometimes I really long to hear those voices. I know if they shout louder they will scare the monster away and my suffering will be ended.
"I remember, and I shall never forget, how this monster took the lives of Tom Ashe, Terence MacSwiney, Michael Gaughan, Frank Stagg, and Hugh Coney, and I wonder each night what the monster and his black devils will do to me tomorrow.
"They always have something new. Will I overcome it? I must. Yes, I must. Tomorrow will be my seven hundred and fortieth day of torture -- an eternity. Yes, tomorrow I’ll rise in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. Yes, tomorrow I’ll fight the monster and his devils again!"

Comrades, in memory of all those who have fought the monster let us resolve, together, to fight it again tomorrow.

[eurocrat]

Pardon my ignorance, but who are TAYAD?

[Vox Populi]

Pardon my ignorance, but who are TAYAD?

The association of solidarity with Turkish (left-wing) prisoners families. TAYAD has its origins in the Junta of the 1980s.

[duff]

Great speech I must say.

[eurocrat]

The association of solidarity with Turkish (left-wing) prisoners families. TAYAD has its origins in the Junta of the 1980s.

And (again please excuse my ignorance) what do they have to do with the 1916 rising. I really am not seeing the link here.

Also why Berlin?

I love the way people post up this kind of thing. as though all this stuff should be obvious.

[Ciaran]

I think the pow's were sharing their history with delegates to the conference. There were a large number of organisations present frm, the basque country, Catalonia, Corsican, Palestine, Iraq and many others. Each was sharing a history of their struggle and situation in their prisons. TAYAD organised the conference, it wasn't specifically about them. Will post the IRPWA speech at the same conference.

[Ciaran]

Berlin is where the conference was held. The IRPWA have attended conferences right across europe in the last 2-3 years.

IRPWA Speech for TAYAD Conference, Berlin 2006.

The Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association would like to give their heartfelt thanks to the organisers of this event for inviting us here, on the 20th Anniversary of the founding of TAYAD. We would also like to express how much we appreciate the support given to both the IRPWA and the Irish Republican Prisoners, by many of you gathered here today. Your efforts and sacrifices have been truly inspirational to us over the years, and we can only hope that we have in some way returned these favours in a similar spirit of solidarity and comradeship.

The concept of the political prisoner has always been an emotive one throughout any revolutionary struggle. The image and idea of someone who risks all, and eventually finds themselves within the confines of the enemy prison system, is sometimes seen as a symbol of the direct aspirations and subsequent oppression of their community on the outside. Indeed, this is perhaps why so many refer to political prisoners as being “on the front line” of the freedom struggle. Their daily experiences consist predominantly of pitting their own revolutionary beliefs against a state apparatus (consisting of guards, CCTV cameras, bare concrete cells, and a hostile administration) which is solely designed to crush and defeat them.

The reason for the existence of the prison in any society is to isolate and control those whom the state considers to be ‘undesirable’. Further to this, imprisonment is a way in which the state can prevent certain groups within society from agitating or spreading a radical or revolutionary ethos amongst the general population. In short, other than suppressing (and killing) members of revolutionary movements the secondary option consists of arrest, imprisonment and isolation. One way in which political prisoners can be helped in their resistance to this is to create solidarity networks both inside and outside the prison. The wider this network can spread the more difficult it is for the prison system to completely isolate the individual. This is especially the case where international solidarity groups are concerned.

Political prisoners and their supporters can in many ways have a shared human experience. When reading about the history of prison struggles from all across the world, it is astounding to realise how many similarities there are. The attempted suppression of TAYAD by the military Junta made some of us think of the way in which supporters of the Irish Republican prisoners have been harassed, abused and sometimes murdered over the years for daring to speak out and organise. In a similar way, the recent testimonies from those released from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib reminded us of the same methods of torture that were applied to some of those Irish citizens held by the British Military under Internment in 1971. Further to this is the use of the hunger strike as a weapon utilised by political prisoners, in Ireland, Turkey and again more recently in Guantanamo Bay. Again and again all of this shows the existence of the previously mentioned shared common human experience.

There has perhaps never been a more opportune moment to spread the message of prisoner support. One of the unforeseen side effects of the current so-called ‘war on terror’ and the illegal occupation of Iraq is that it has pushed the issue of political prisoners to the forefront of discussion. However, we have a responsibility to continually refer to our own struggles within this context and not simply allow Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to appear as unique occurrences. The U.S administration are currently discussing the possible closure of Abu Ghraib specifically in light of the public outcry over the evidence of torture going on there. This is an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to convince everyone that the torture has simply ended, instead of carrying on behind closed doors within jails that have no obvious names. We must remember that every country has its political prison…every country has its Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

Likewise, it would be a tactical error to allow our enemies the advantage of creating a united front against us. As many already know, those oppressive states that many of us strive against are quite blatant in their support for each other. For example, both America and England have heavily supported the Turkish regime. Between 1994 and 1997 the British government approved arms sales exceeding £265 Million for what the author Mark Curtis said “was specifically for pursuing a scorched earth policy against the Kurdish population.” Indeed these arms sales continue under Tony Blair’s Labour government. Despite being guilty of murdering, displacing and repressing thousands of its own citizens, Turkey was recently described by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as “a model for the aspirations of democratic progress and prosperity.” The fact that such prominent politicians are quite obviously aware of the terrible atrocities that the Turkish state inflicts upon people, but continue to ignore them (and furthermore supply them with the tools to carry out such oppression) makes them directly complicit in these crimes.

In light of this we have an international obligation to create and sustain strong networks of solidarity of our own, between all those involved in similar struggles. The international aspect is a highly important one, and time after time we have also been shown that this is our enemy’s weakest point. Their self-image on the international stage is all-important. How a government is perceived abroad can make great differences in things like cross-border trade, international investment, tourism etc. One of the successes of the past thirty years has to be the activities and subsequent popularity of the international Anti-Apartheid movement. At times when the South African government tried to portray itself abroad as a ‘normal, peaceful society’ it was the Anti-Apartheid activists across the world who would constantly remind everyone that it was in reality a brutal, racist and tyrannical regime. We must strive to create a similar situation whereby wherever these governments travel people are exposing their criminal and oppressive activities.

Go raibh maith agat.