Council or state.
the First of October -enricient at rounding Galicia despite the protestations demonstrated SINE were brought to a halt.
ano in Sar DOUrECOIS capitulated so defiantly, •Gora Everyone 1937.
Basques dead on the become was Kionaooed oy an organisatior calling itselt the revolutionary Ant-lascist aroup oi GRAPO. Before Christmas Red Weekly pointed out the very shady background to this organisation. Its oniy previous actions were tne bombings last July, wnich nave been estabnisned a provocations of the extreme right.
We indicated the long record of the Spanish police and extreme right in carrying out such provocations that normally - SUreSS up terrorists. have conclusive evidence linking GRAPO to the fascists and unimpeded even more strange unan une easy kidnapping or General emilio villaecusa, resident o RICHARD CARVER exclusively the preserve of those who had easily before Franco. It was the PNV Government of the Autonomous Basque Martin Villa Republic which betrayed thousands of Basque militia fighters to the Italian army at Santona The mayors (appointees of Franco) who met Interior Minister Rodolfo Martin Villa to negotiate the legalisation of the flag are also members or sympathisers of the The enthusiasm of the crowds in San Sebastian which drowned out the mayor's speech, was not over a mere nag. ine bulk or une basque working class, half of whom do not even speak the Basque langu- Unem not nationalists in any sense. What is at stake 1s the fight for the democratic right of the basque nanon to sen-dercrimina and that means the right to policemen last Friday Killing was done with the same gunt produced in made to with an additional charge in the nandie used Tor - raDia auromanc mang and the policemen GUTIERREZ MELLADO, 'liberal" deputy premier, scuffles with fascists at the funeral of the three policemen aries and the vanguard of th workers movement - rather than from the nationalists of the PNV Since the 1920s the bourgeois nationalists have not demanded the right to self-determination, but within the Spanish The Basque mavors' deal with part of that strategy. Both parties to the agreement hope that symbolic conces THOS sions will be enough to divert the struggle for national democratic Ine probiem, wrom ten pont of view, is that the people assembled in 18 Julv Square know exactly what they are up to. Few are taken in by the amued ponucal conces sions which the Suarez Governelections. The PNV and the Comother hand, seem quite happy with In this case it is the demands of Trotskvists for a national Constituent Assembly which have been taken up by the masses, tor example in the Manifesto of i the This was intended to look like revenge for the mureer or ine communist lawyars earner i une woon In fact this second action bore all the hallmarks of the first. The highly professional murder technique was , followed by the torso being riddled with bullets. But above all, each It is called CINE numbers by the US Governmen and not on sale on the world market. It is pistol-sized ana Call Dt eTTeCTIVE This was the gun used to kill the lawyers Left-wing guerillas supplied with American arms?
PNV is riding high on a wave of popularity among the middle lay ers of society, the shopkeepers and Smial Tarmers. Dur as me monca tions of the Government's real and Dans Tor unc Dasuue COuntLy the collaboration PNV become apparent, it is unlikely that these people will maintain their alcalance Two hundred political prisoners of them Basques, are still held by the dictatorship. Young Basques are daily picked up by the police, bound, beaten drowned in baths of filthy water Fifteen-year-old Juan Miguel Iglesias was murdered by police in Sestao a fortnight ago.
These are the simple facts which Julio Jauregui, the PNV repres entative now negotiating with the Government, has forgotten masses in the old quarter of San Sebastian, weette nationalists or socialists, have not nine genera strikes of las year, and when the fascists attack• not the PNV which organised democratic self-defence squads but the people themselves
beneficial". His statement caught the tollowing cav.
away JOHN MAGEE reports from Belfast Northern Ireland Secretary of State Roy Mason went to Dublin last week Southern Coalition that British rule in the Six Counties was snarine Ine ront pace unemployment figures. As usual the latter recorded a rise in the number over 57,000 in January Mason's statement would be greeted with a healthy cynicism. One of the won't go advanced by Dut is au continues to rocker uowards ane more inan incomes of E25 or less. with the Nonner inflation continue to rise latest ensuring that ceived scant mention.
That the PTA had been used yet again against members of a recogMISCO Doncal orsalsation hardly acknowledged. But when London, huge hysterical headlines were the order of the day.
As always, the newspapers reported that it was a 'miracle' that no-one was killed by the bombs although the small amounts of explosives used, and the timing of them, suggests that there was a conscious anemo! fatalities. And, of course, by BelTast standards. Ine explosions were minor affairs indeed.
Having said that, no revolutionary socialist can approve of the bombines. must be that Irish Republicans were responsible for them. Yet again those. Republicans prime motivations for maintaining ine bnusn link wnich nas beel Unionist politicians in the past is that British subsidies provide a standard of living comparable to that on the British mainland;
argument seldom heard today as the number of jobless hardship for workers familles throughout the Uk, is electin the North 150,000 families in the Six Counties were living below subsistence level one me or meacs or nousenoos nave net weeks The impoverished picture of life here has also been startlingly detailed Recent publication by the Child Poverty Action Group of the esults of a survey they have just carried out into the standard of living o under British rule. Their pamphlet, Poverty: racts in Norner relano, recoras inati - wages are lower than in Britain by an average of 25 per week was 'mad bombers' returned to be "paddies' can fight it out.
nor to causc monstrations, assumption hava - in 1974, 24 percent of male workers and three quarters of female of the North of Ireland there can b - the price of basics such as food, fuel and transport is much higher than rule' so treasured by the capitalist class.
There is one further explanation borne little fruit. for the West End bombs. tactics behind them are based on assumption that the more bombings there are, the more the British public will get weary of the Irish war and demand 'our boys' brought home so that the But Irish Republicans tend to think along those tactical lines be- BUl cause an alternative way of mobiusing opinion against ine war na not materialised. They can see by the smallness of troops out de apparent movement towards the Irish war, that the tactic of appealing to the working class to mobilise in favour of Irish self-determination has the movement before any 'party in Britain; electricity charges are as much as 35 per cent higher, whil gas is up to one-and-a-hall times more expensive one person in seven has to claim supplementary benefit of Famil Be Supplement in an attempt to make in 1974, claimants in Britain were • Needs Payments as claimants in the six Counties made to the long-term unemployed to cover such things as clothes, hig!
payment will know that it is harder to succeed with such a claim than etc. Anvone in ritain who nas tried is to light a match in a basin of water] investors mat the sinke rate mme Britain. and that "for everv company that experiences financial or labou difficulties here, there are scores and scores of factories that keep goin existence for working class people that help guarantee these profits!
ne coat samonier. ov canerno such a weann or marenar betwee two covers, is to be welcomed for beginning the task of making thes beneficial' not for workers but only for the bosses. For the worker enjoy the benefits of their labour until they organise to end the 'Britis Although the ultimate conclusions drawn are wrong, mere is no doubt that the working class movement in this country does carry its share of responsibility especially those of its leaders who have recently rushed like flies to cow pro-RUC "Peace Movement"
when the Peace People came to London recently, they were greeted by a demonstration called by the Peace Through Free dom Committee. That demonstra tion was a success because those organising it had agreed to sink their political differences and build the counter-demonstration on a united front base: that is, putting RED WEEKLY 3 February 1977 11 as likely to get Exceptiona (These payments an to claim such conditions o that British rule 'is proving expectation that the building' interests. It was also a success because the acmanc "troops out now' was stressed The need to agitate, educate and organise on the Irish issue remains essential. There are still many winin ine working class mass or ganisations who are willing to joir such work if an attractive enoug opportunity presents itself.
The bombings, the revelations a the Old Bailey Trial, the continued use of the PTA, make the promo tion of that more urgent. Not because this ma or may not "stop the bombings"; but because, as the old slogans say. *Ireland Unfree Will Never Be A Peace' and 'A Nation That En slaves Another Can Never Itself Be Free'