IRSP gaining ground in Derry

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday September 05, 2002 15:05 by britkilla irsp at netwizards dot net

PADDY McGUFFIN talks to the senior IRSP member Terry Harkin about ceasefires, the Agreement, drugs and the party's re-emergence in the North

IRSP gaining ground in Derry

PADDY McGUFFIN talks to the senior IRSP member Terry Harkin about ceasefires, the Agreement, drugs and the party's re-emergence in the
North

The leadership of the IRSP - the political wing of the INLA - said
yesterday that their numbers were on the rise in Derry and across Ireland
due to a growing disillusionment among republicans over the Good Friday
Agreement.
Derry has traditionally been a stronghold for the republican socialist
movement, but due to the infamous supergrass trials and attacks on
members from outside influences support waned.

Now though, the movement claim that more and more working class
republicans are turning to them as the only viable option.

Speaking to the Derry News, the London based Derry IRSP Ard Comhairle
member Terry Harkin said that the Republican Socialist movement needed to
provide coherent opposition to "bourgeois loyalism and nationalism".
He explained: "The IRSP and the INLA were conceived on the premise of one
simple idea, the need to unite, once and for all the class and national
questions, the idea was that of class unity.

"Derry has always been a stronghold for republican socialism and I think
this has a lot to do with the shirt factories. Marx and Engels based part
of Das Kapital on Tillie's in Derry.

"The attacks on the movement in '87 and '96 prevented the movement from
achieving re-cohesion following the supergrass trials but we have had a
long period of stability and people are coming back."

The organisation, by means of its non-aggression pact, has also made
inroads into Protestant communities.
Harkin commented: "We have always had Protestant members of the
organisation, Ronnie Bunting in Belfast being a case in point. We have
always set out to do what Seamus Costello [founder member of the IRSP]
wanted to do and that is to try and unite the working class against our
oppressors. We already have a foothold in Protestant working class areas
due to our work in the Trade Unions and workers councils, and we have
always been active on the ground. The fact that we are not preaching a
doctrine solely biased on painting things green and leaving the class
structure alone also works in our favour."

Oppression of Protestants

Nevertheless the IRSP and INLA would be seen as sectarian by many Protestants.

Harkin said: "We are sectarian, we are sectarian against the large
landowners who own huge parts of the country from outside Ireland. We are
against the multinationals, the low pay employers who are reintroducing
non-unionisation to the country and pro-Brit gunmen."

Harkin believes, however, that oppression is more institutionalised in
protestant communities than in catholic areas.
He said: "I think they are more oppressed because they do not know that
they are being oppressed. They have been so successfully bamboozled by
generation after generation being bought off or killed off in England's
wars that they don't notice anymore.

"The greatest achievement of the British Empire was the retardation of
the Presbyterian faith in Ireland. Here, you had a faith that was the most
radical and freethinking in the world at the time. A faith that gave
birth to revolutionary liberation theory and in a sense to Irish republicanism. Where once you had Henry Joy McCracken and Roddy McCorley, now you have Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley - it's mind boggling."

Frictions

There has long been friction between the IRSP and Sinn Fein, a mutual
distrust that has existed since the movement's inception in 1974.

Harkin commented: "We differ from Sinn Fein because we come from a class
perspective. At times, this can be a curse.

"We would say that the sectarian divide has been institutionalised by the
Good Friday Agreement. We are trying to move this from the so-called
religious confrontation as the Brits have labelled it. It is not about
that, it is about being ruled from across the sea it is about us having
the right to this land and the right to take it back. To own, as a
nation, the produce of our nation. We are saying let's get back to brass tacks.

"We are not now and never have been abstentionist. When the time is right
we will get into the councils and the Dail but what the IRSP will not do
is take bribes from the US or anywhere else nor will we stand for their
lame duck assembly. However the point is that when Patsy O'Hara, Mickey
Devine and Kevin Lynch were dying on hunger strike Thatcher told us to
get an electoral mandate, we refused, look what happened to those who did get
a mandate."

'Not dissidents'

So, what view do the IRSP take of other republican groups such as the
RIRA and the CIRA?

Harkin thinks the use of the term 'dissidents' is incorrect: "These are
people following the line they have always followed. To call them
dissidents is to stand republicanism on its head. The dissidents are
those sitting in Stormont. The 32 county sovereignty movement and RSF have the ideology the republican movement always had. The IRSP espouse socialist
republican ideas. They haven't learned, they are an umbrella group for a
spectrum of views from right wing nationalists to left wing socialists.

"The physical presence of Britain in our country with Soldiers and
paramilitary police on our streets means that people will feel they have
a legitimate right to attack them and I would not criticise them for that.
I differ greatly from them in that I do not believe that armed struggle has
a place at this time but I cannot condemn them out of hand. Omagh was wrong.

"The GFA must fall but it must be allowed to fall by itself, because it
is wrong. It is not for us to bring it down. People voted for it and we
don't tell people what to think, we tell them to think for themselves."

Drug allegations

The movement has been dogged by persistent rumours that it is involved
with the illegal drug trade. And it was reported last week that the INLA
were moving in on the drug trade in North Belfast.

Harkin strongly denied the claim: "The Sunday World ran a story some time
ago that the Provos had smashed a drug ring involving the INLA in Belfast.
What actually happened was that the INLA smashed the ring and expelled
those involved. It was a particularly insidious ring where kids were
being sold bags of glue. The Sunday World jumped on it and said that it was the INLA doing that, but the people of North Belfast know who is out there on
the ground protecting their communities and smashing the drug trade.

"There has never been a current or serving member of either the IRSP or
INLA questioned, arrested or charged with having drugs, selling drugs or
being involved with them. I would challenge any journalist to check out
that statement. This is deliberate black propaganda. If one of our
members had been involved it would have been on the front page of every newspaper but it simply hasn't happened."

So, how does Harkin see the current and future role of the party?

"I think the fact that we have always called it straight down the line
has made an impression on people," he stated.
"People are becoming discontented and are looking for a stable
organisation to help them. If we thought the GFA would have worked, we
would have been there at the very beginning. We didn't, it hasn't but we
haven't been sniping from the sidelines. If there had been a serious
attempt under the GFA to sort out Northern Ireland's problems there would
have been conflict resolution measures but there haven't been any.

"The non-aggression pact deals with workers, with people who are at war
not the bourgeoisie. People who left our organisation years ago are
coming back, you only have to look at north Belfast. People are looking at us
and saying 'they have a point'. We have not been rattling our sabres, we have
been saying that workers from both sides need to sit down and sort this
out."