hostages Days before the leadership election he wrote to the Times to proclaim how important PARATROOPER Lee John Major was to the "Peace Clegg, convicted of the Process". Some of those murder of Karen Reilly, MP's supporting Clegg were was released on parole after in the Redwood camp and Mayhew believed that serving only four years of Clegg's release might win the life sentence on the day some back for Major. before the election for the Of the 35 Republican "lifleadership of the Tory ers» in British jails, 11 have Party. served more than 20 years, Claiming the release had many for lesser offences than nothing to do with John Ma- murder. Time and again apjor's desire to boost his peals for parole have been chances in the election, gov- turned down. ernment spin doctors said Appeals for transfer to IreClegg's case had been land or for compassionate through the same legal proc- leave have been refused. Little esses as any other prisoner wonder that Clegg's release serving a life sentence. led to rioting as people's anger and frustration with the BritMayhow ish government boiled over.
Northern Ireland Secretary No comparison Patrick Mayhew's behaviour tells the real story. He was the Major himself attempted to one who took the decision justify Mayhew's decision to about Clegg. release Clegg by claiming The decision by France's his manoeuvres in Europe, and newly-elected conservative partly of the fact that the British President Jacques Chirac defence establishment are to authorise resumption of themselves contemplating new nuclear tests. French nuclear tests at Mu- Significant anti-nuclear ruroa Atoll in the South Pademonstrations have taken cific has brought an place in French Polynesia and outraged reaction from New Caledonia, scene of a many quarters. long-running anti-colonial Alongside ecological and conflict. peace organisations such as In France itself opposition, Greenpeace and CND protests while still small-scale, has behave come from many govern- gun to develop. There have ments in the region, in particu- been two several thousand lar the fifteen members of the strong demonstrations in Pacific Forum, including Aus- Paris - the second with the potralia and New Zealand. litical backing of a wide range One voice missing from this of organisations, including chorus of criticism has been Greens and the French Comthat of the British government, munist Party. which claims the new tests are The leading opposition an internal French matter. party, the Socialists, under This silence is partly the their new leader Lionel Jospin, fruit of Major's wish to buiid a have criticised Chirac's deciFranco-British axis to buttress sion to resume the series of The CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT is holding a rally starting at 1pm on to demand: No more nuclear testing For a nuclear-free world there was no comparison between the case and that of IRA Andrew Duncan, chair of the Tory backbench Northern Ireland Committee said there would be no discussion of the release of IRA prisoners until the IRA de-commissioned its weapons.
The message was clear: Republican prisoners in Ireland and Britain are merely a bargaining chip in the negotiations, hostages to the political needs of the British, in short, political prisoners.
The issue of the prisoners has always been central to the struggle against British rule in Ireland. Labour Northern Ireland Secretary Roy Mason withdrew political status on March Ist 1976 as part of the British effort to criminalise the struggle.
Prisoners in Long Kesh and Armagh Jails began the "dirty protest" which resulted tests suspended in 1992 by Socialist President Mitterrand.
However, they remain supporters of French nuclear weapons. As Jospin explained during the Presidential election campaian last March, "the determination to maintain the nuclear deterrent is not incompatible with a continuation of the moratorium on nuclear tests - which presupposes a simulation programme - as long as the other powers keep their promises about this"
Others pursue a more consistent anti-nuclear line amona them Socialist Outlook's sister organisation, the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). The comments below are taken from an article by Pierre Rousset in the LCR's weekly paper Rouge. "The notion of deterrence has always been used to mask the aggressive purpose of the nuclear arsenal. It has united right and leftwing government parties around defence of France's status as a great power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and of • IRISH UNITY it in the 1981 Hunger Strikes led by Bobby Sands, in which ten prisoners died.
A mass protest movement shook British rule in Ireland in a way not seen since the Civil Rights Movement in the late 60's. Though the Thatcher government publicly refused the prisoner's demands, it later conceded privately that they should be treated differently to criminals.
The impetus from that struggle fed through not only the club of "official" nuclear weapons states.
Why maintain and modernise an arsenal which is soon to be destroyed? Our government parties know nerfectly well that studies are being conducted to miniaturize nuclear weapons, and propaganda campaigns will be conducted to soften up public opinion to accept their military use.
The fundamental choice is not between real or computer-simulated tests. If we want to live tomorrow without the nuclear threat hanging over our heads we must put a stop now to the infernal spiral unleashed by the 'great powers' and break the behind-the-scenes grip of the civilian and military nuclear lobby.
This decision involves the future of the whole of humanity, but it has been taken by one person - Chirac. Without any democratic debate, he has announced his 'irrevocable' decision.
We are told that the tests involve no risks. Who knows? No independent commission has been able to freely look at the problem.
The three which have been to Mururoa have had neither the necessary time nor freedom to visit the sites The Hunger Strikes shook British rule: now republican prisoners are used as hostages into the rise of Sinn Fein as a political force in the North but also into the growth a significant element within the British Labour Party in favour of withdrawal.
In 1985 the Dublin government, fearing the rise in support for Sinn Fein would combine with the economic crisis, tried to head off the threatened political meltdown by signing the Anglo-Irish A preement Margaret Thatcher, unionand have been closely supervised by the military.
The resumption of French tests risks setting off a chain reaction. In Washington, Moscow and London the military-industrial lobbies are already pushing for new tests.
The American moratorium may not be continued. The isolation of China, which has never observed the moratorium, is over.
The 'unofficial members of the nuclear weapons club such as israel and India and Mclearacy ist to the core, was forced to concede that the war in Ireland was not simply an internal British problem.
Almost a year after the cease-fire, the British are demanding that the IRA "decommissions" its weapons before they will talk to Sinn Fein about a settlement.
We demand that the British immediately release all political prisoners as an indication of their seriousness about peace. the "candidate members' will be encouraged.
This series of tests must be abandoned and the total test ban treaty signed without delay.
It is not a question of undertaking a few more or less symbolic actions against the resumption of French tests.
We have to set a new direction and revive, through struggle, the process of nuclear disarmament currently bogged down in international negotiations.'
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No 87, July 15 1995, Page 7