'We will use any means necessary'

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday August 21, 2002 03:13 by Poblachtach Soisialach - IRSM

INLA on Loyalist attacks

Derry Journal article on the Irish National Liberation Army's position on continued and unabated loyalists attacks on working class communities, includes significant quoting of the public address given by IRSP AC member John Murtagh at the IRSM Hunger Strike Commemoration in Derry this past Sunday.

Derry Journal
20 Aug 02

'We will use any means necessary' - INLA on Loyalist attacks

THE INLA in Derry has warned that it will use 'any means necessary' to defend the city's 'working class Catholics' from sectarian attack.

The warning, issued after a string of loyalist attacks on Catholics over the past fortnight- was delivered by the IRSP at the annual Ard Comhairle Hunger Strike Commemoration in Derry on Sunday.

Speaking at the event, John Murtagh, IRSP Ard Comhairle said: "The INLA have assured us that they will use any means necessary to defend working class homes from attack and we support them in that stance.

"Our comrades and members live in these so called interface areas and are active on the ground in defending working class homes from sectarian attack.

"Our fight, our struggle, our battlefield is here in Ireland. Our comrades, our members, our fighters are every day involved in the struggles of the Irish working class. They are there in defence of the nationalist working class areas."

Despite the warning however, the group said that they remain committed to encouraging dialogue between communities living along interfaces in both the cityside and the Waterside.

"We are neither war mongers nor sectarian bigots. We do not want to see working class communities attacking neighbouring working class areas," Mr. Murtagh said.

"This may suit some people but as Republicans Socialists we take no pleasure in watching working class communities at each other's throats while the middle classes tut tut in the plush homes along the Culmore Road at the antics of the lower classes."

Non-agression pact

The IRSP have now proposed that a non-agression pact be adopted to encourage dialogue between areas such as the Fountain and the Bogside.

"We appeal to community workers, activists, and trade unionists particularly within Unionist areas, but also within nationalist areas, to shake off the grip of those manipulators who would deny you the right to control your own lives.

"It is about neighbours reaching agreement between themselves without the fear of manipulation by armed groups. It is the beginning of working class communities taking control of their lives and the ending of their manipulation by thugs, bullyboys and political opportunists."

THE IRSP has said that the Good Friday Agreement had brought nothing but further sectarian hatred and called on Sinn Fein to pull the plug on Stormont by walking out.

Mr. Murtagh however stressed that the group believed an armed struggle was no longer viable.

"Over the past six years the IRSP and INLA have been re-evaluating re-examining and renewing, in the light of current realities, our policies and principles.

"Other republicans believe that the continuation of armed struggle will bring about a Republic; that by clinging to absolutes they can by the purity of their principles convince "the people" to back them. We think they should reconsider and reflect on the dividends of the 30 years of armed struggle.

"The Celtic Tiger is fading and we will soon be back to unemployment, poverty, poor housing, and a cap in hand attitude to the imperialist power of the USA."

Photos of the commemoration can be seen at http://irsm.org/fallen/commemorations/