Street-fighting returned to the Belfast ghettoes this week on a scale and with a ferocity not witnessed since the aftermath of Bloody Sunday in 1972. In all the nationalist districts of the city, hundreds of youths have been on the streets stoning the British soldiers and erecting barricades with hijacked lorries.
Over 200 incidents were logged by the Crown forces in the 24 hours following the death of Frank Stagg on hunger strike in Wakefield prison. His death has not only provoked widespread anger amongst the Catholic community; it has also prised open the lid of passivity that has been clamped over the anti-Unionist districts for the past six months.
Demonstrations have been held in all parts of the Six Counties, and that on the Falls Road in Belfast attracted 8,000 people. The surprise with which this response has taken the British administration here is written all over the panic-stricken faces of the soldiers on the streets. Fed with stories that the IRA had been isolated and was now without support within the anti-Unionist working class, the events of the past few days are proving a nightmare for the British Army.
On the constitutional front, British imperialism has fared no better. Up at Stormont, the secret inter-party talks have ground to a halt. These were generally recognised as the only forum in which some sort of compromise could be stitched up between the Loyalist coalition and the so-called 'moderate parties.
The latter have been frantically grasping at every wet straw in the hope that they could suck some slime off the United Ulster Unionist Council. But such was the instransigence of the Loyalist coalition that the Social Democratic & Labour Party walked out after only 1½ hours of talks. being recalled, the Convention is all but dead.
Clearly the 'sweet air of reason' which Guardian Belfast correspondent Derek Brown had claimed prevailed at the first meeting of the recalled Convention never left the debating chamber. The failure of its latest solution leaves British imperialism with the stark choice: capitulation to the Loyalists, or withdrawal from Ireland, allowing the Irish people to exercise their right to self-determination.
WILL TO FIGHT The major block to the first course is the will to fight still being displayed by the Catholic working class. However, the ability of the anti-Unionist working class to respond physically to the gnawing repression and to combat politically the British manoeuvres is not unlimited. War-weariness and exhaustion are dangers which cannot be ignored. But even more dangerous is the wasting of the mass movement direction.
NO DIRECTION Republican Movement seem incapable of providing such a direction. Instead of using the events of the Within one week of last week to bring about a generalised mobilisation of the anti-Unionist working class in opposition to the British presence and in defence of the many hundreds of political prisoners still in British hands, the advice given to the 8,000 who marched on the Falls Road by ProvisDrumm was: 'Go home, leave it all Such an attitude, rather than developing the confidence and trust of the working class in the volunteers of the IRA, severs the head of the resistance movement from its body. It encourages freelance efforts such as those by the Irish Volunteer Force' which we have witnessed in the last few days; so that instead of the mobilisation of the most militant sections of the working class becoming the spearhead of a mass movement in opposition to British imperialism, it becomes yet a further crack through which Britain can weaken and frustrate the movement. through the lack of a clear political The leadership of the Provisional ional Sinn Fein vice-president Marie Rialism to Oglaigh na h'Eireann [the IRA].' British JOHN MAGEE reports from Belfast Revolutionaries in the Six Counties are going to have to make a gigantic effort in the next few weeks to try to give direction to the pent-up anger of the nationalist ghettoes. Frank Stagg was the third Irishman this century to die on hunger strike FRANK STAGG - FOURTH INTERNATIONAL STATEMENT The meeting on 13 February 1976 of the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International learns with anger of the death of Frank StaggIrish political prisoner in a British jail - from the effects of a prolonged hunger strike. It salutes this last heroic protest and struggle of Frank Stagg as one more episode in the struggle for Irish freedom from the domination of British imper This death was cnically and cold bloodedly brought about by the Labour Government. hamer tnan release Frank Stagg from solitary confinement or grant him political prisoner status through transfer to the Six Counties. it preferred to let him die. anis crime cacalist une irisnocose is verone more confirmation of the anti-working class character of the Labour Government and its role as a servant of British imperialism against the international, Irish and working classes.
But this death is one more sign that the spirit of resistance to British imperialism of the Irish masses continues undaunted after nine centuries of British opp ression, countless martyrs and sever years of the current struggle in the North of Ireland, Despite the presence or over 1o vuu troops, desoite unt in an English jail. The words of Patrick Pearse are as relevant now as when he uttered them over the graves of Irish felons in the early part of this century: 'While Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace?
presence or the notorious torturers anc murderers of the SAS, despite the harass ment, brutalisation and repression of the mudsses, une struccle goes on Frank Stagg did not die in vain. His death will redouble the efforts of the Irish masses in the struggle against the imperialist aggressor; it will redouble the determination of all socialists and militants in Britain and of the inter national working class in their Tiant Toi solidarity with the struggle of the Irish masses and with all those fighting to expel British imperialism from Ireland.
The Fourth International in partic ular calls for full solidarity in the tasks of its British and other sections for the development of a mass struggle for the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and of its Irish section - the Revolution ary Marxist Group — in its struggle for an irish workers hebuoic The IEC of the Fourth International expresses its complete sympathy to the relatives and Republican comrades of Frank Stagg, and its militant solidarity with all those fighting for the liberation Release all Irish Political Prisoners!
British Troops Out of Ireland!
Self Determination for the Irish