"Partly because of the historic weakening of Irish nationalism, the British seem to be on a 'win/win' roll. If the republicans reject the Downing Street declaration the British have at least got Dublin on side. If they accept, then the price paid by Britain - a mere form of words - is far less than they originally reckoned on paying." every level in the new state. But you cannot have self determination for the Six Counties separately from the Twenty Six Counties.
The Unionist veto is the British foot-in-the door which prevents Irish self determination. Hume's "divided people' argument is partitionist and antiAny settlement based on it would lead inevitably back to a rejigged Unionist statelet.
Boxed in It looks as though the republicans have been boxed in. Massive public expectations of peace will make it extremely hard for the IRA to reject the peace proposals.
The greatest danger of all is evident in a throwaway remark Douglas Hurd. It might not matter, he said, if a Dublin/London agreement couldn't be sold to The IRAl The hidden British agenda is obviously to split the Dan nationalist alliance' in which Sinn Fein places so much faith and draw Dublin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party into a combined repression of the republicans. The threats by Douglas Hurd have been echoed from Dublin.
Politically and economically weakened as they are, the Dublin government has little interest in Irish unity. Their main concern, apart from the cost -spending more per head on security than the British do - is to ensure that the republicans do not ignite the political opposition in the South.
Playing with republican rhetoric to distract attention from the economic crisis is seen increasingly as bad form, if not downright dangerous.
EU funds
The new mood music in Dublin is 'modernisation', the orientation is European and the EU funds necessary to fend off the social crisis.
At the same time, Dublin's perception is that British methods of attempting to defeat republicanism are too crude and calls for a more realistic approach provided by themselves.
Partly because of the historic weakening of Irish nationalism the British seem to be on a 'win/win' roll. If the republicans reject the Downing Street declaration the British have at least got Dublin on side. If they accept, then the price paid by Britain - a mere form of words - is far less than they originally reckoned on paying.
No interest While the Downing Street declaration claimed the British had no strategic or economic interest in Ireland, there was no mention of their political interest - a point made by several Tory backbenchers in the House of Comfions.
Policy towards Ireland is dictated by a number of key, political, considerations. Firstly, a forced withdrawal is unthinkable - there would be uncomfortable parallels with Portugal after its retreat from Africa.
While the end of the Cold War means that the strategic reasons for occupation are less important, any retreat could be treated as weakness and therefore imperil Britain's standing as a world power.
And while the economic reasons for staying are in fact negative, holding the Six Counties enables the British to exert a degree of control over the whole island.
Rumblings
The rumblings on the Tory right have so far been muffled but should Unionist support start to waver there is a fair chance they will start shouting 'betrayal'.
The orientation of the withdrawal movement in Britain could now cause serious problems. It has generally oriented towards Irish rather than to British politics.
The slogans may have been different to those of the republicans but the politics was often similar.
The danger now is that such a close identification with Sinn Fein could now divert the core of activists around the Troops Out Movement away from it main purpose which is to build support for British withdrawal and for self determination for Ireland.
* Forkey Mass movement in support of Hunger Strikers marked last serious republican attempt to build in southern working class From Patrick Baker in Barcelona SOUNDS familiar. Thousands of workers booted out every day, their rights disappearing like snow out of a ditch.
This was the generous present that workers in the Spanish state could expect from multinationals such as Volkswagen/Seat as they headed for the festive season, ably aided by our Socialist government.
But are they sitting back and taking it? No. Far from it.
But first a little background. Last year's elections returned a minority Socialist (PSOE) administration, with the cryptoTory Partido Popular (PP) a few percentage points behind.
The PSOE, headed by Felipe Gonzalez, generally rely on the right wing Catalan Nationalists of Convergencia y Unio for their majority, though on the rare occasions when they implement a progressive measure they don't object to support the Izquierda Unida (United Left, of which more later).
Despite much scepticism born of bitter experience, most on the left breathed a sigh of relief after the elections. Spain was, at least, not going to get a dose of Thatcherism a la Aznar (the PP's leader).
And the Izquierda Unida, a hard-left regroupment dominated by the Communist Party, did get 15-odd per cent of the vote.
Since then the Socialist administration has fulfilled the worst nightmares of the left, launching a bitter offensive against workers' rights.
And the justification for these attacks would warm the cockles of John Major's heart. Spain is deep in recession, with 23 per cent unemployed - so obviously the only way out is to make it much easier to sack workers, to employ workers with no rights to social security, to employ young workers for a pittance.
Yes, in that respect there are marked similarities with Britain. But there they end. Because rather than the feeble moan that one could expect from John 'Socialist PM Felipe Gonzalez Smith et al in response to such measures, there have been a wave of mass demonstrations which are shortly to be followed by a one-day general strike.
Strike call
The first call for such a response was issued back in Autumn by Julio Anguita, leader of the United Left (UL). This call was rapidly taken up by both main union federations - the DUN T LE Comisiones Obreras (Workers' Commissions, Communist led) and the UGT (previously Socialist).
A day of action called by the two federations in December was massively followed, with demonstrations of tens, and sometimes over a hundred, of thousands right across the Spanish state.
Since then the unions, along with the UL, have been conducting a mass campaign for a general strike on January 27 - 'the only way to get these attacks withdrawn'.
Polls shortly before Christmas revealed that supporters of all parties, PP included, thought that the strike would be a big success.
So what lies ahead?
Well, the campaign of action and the general strike are clearly a very positive response from the workers' movement to Gonzalez's at- WORLD NEWS tacks.
Whether they will be sufficient to beat back the austerity offensive is hard to say. But what is as plain as the nose on your face is that attacks from both government and employers and would come thicker and faster if the workers' movement sat back and did nothing.
The unfortunate aspect of the situation is that there is now no state-wide far left organisation to build politically on these struggles.
Though the UL have played a very positive role thus far, the recent self-dissolution of most of the Izquierda Alternativa, the only substantial far left organisation that organised across the Spanish state, was particularly ill-timed.
«We can't tell you how important lorries are for us" SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 55, January 15 1994, Page 8 JENNY MEES, member of the Workers Socialist Party, Belgian section of the Fourth International, recently returned from Bosnia. She had reached Tuzla as part of the International Workers Aid for Bosnia convoy. She will be visiting Britain in the next few weeks to speak at a series of International Workers Aid meetings. We publish here an interview she conducted with SELIM BESLAGIC, mayor of Tuzla. Jenny Mees: What do you think about the current situation in Bosnia? Selim Beslagic: The world refuses to face the truth, the world refuses to call to account the aggressors and war criminals, the world avoids saying that Radovan Karadzic (leader of the OSNIA CONVOY Bosnian Serbs) and Mate Boban (leader of the Bosnian Croats) are fascists who want to nail the Bosnian people to the stake.
No, public opinion puts the aggressor and the victim on the same level. The Bosnian people, and especially the Bosnian Muslims, are threatened with death. They are the victims, not one of the three warring factions which are referred to these three nowadays. In Bosnia all the people want to, and can, live in peace.
Tuzla is the proof of this. We have no other choice: our population has lived together for centuries and is very mixed. Because of the war life has become so hard I fear that even here extremism can gain ground.
The nationalist parties want to claim that the war, starvation and deprivation are the results of our policies and that our ideas are therefore wrong. But we know that we are acting correctly and the multi-ethnic composition of the population demands such policies. The world must know the truth about Tuzla and help us. JM: What is the biggest problem for the region? SB: Hunger. People are hungry and, if the situation does not improve, the weak and the poor are going to die through a combination of hunger and Jenny Mees, next to Mayor of Tuzla (centre, with glasses)
cold. able to get through. very difficult. ble? our airport in Tuzla.
Because of the blockade no convoys are getting through. You started out with fifteen lorries and only three reached our city. No other civilian convoy has been We have no diesel and therefore no transport, which also makes the situation JM:Our convoy led a campaign to open up the so-called Norther Route (the Posavina corridor). Do you think that this route is possibravery. SB: Yes, it is a logical route! But there are other possibilities, through Banja Luka or Belgrade for example.
But everything comes down to a question of political will and the relationship of military forces. The best way of saving our people now is, however, to open up "Our conception is that all the refugees must be able to retur to their own region. We do not accept that frontiers can be drawn by force, we don't accept a peace which deprives people of their home" JM: We tried to force a way through the Northern Route. That cost us a lot of time, energy and money. Perhaps it was a mistake or stupid to do that? SB: No, it was brave! We are pleased that you gave this issue its pressing political importance, that you have exposed the facts about this route.
The Bosnian people are equally brave and if we ever decided to force a way through this passage it would not be a question of stupidity but of exceptional JM: Tuzla now has 70,000 refugees, particularly Muslims coming from central and eastern Bosnia. Does that not create tensions now that the ethnic composition of Tuzla has been changed? SB: The problem of the refugees is not on such a scale that it has changed the original ethnic composition of