The following statement was issued by the Manchester branch of the Communist League in the United Kingdom on Saturday, June 15, the day of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing in the city.

The Communist League calls on all working people, youth and defenders of democratic rights to demand that John Major's government immediately end the exclusion of Sinn Fein from talks on the future of Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein won 15.5 percent of the votes in the election Major himself set up, their highest vote ever, yet they have been left outside the gates where the newly elected body is meeting.

The British government insists that Sinn Fein, and the 40 percent of the nationalist community that its vote represents, will be excluded until the IRA declare another cease-fire. Meanwhile the British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) remain free, as they did during the last cease-fire, to harass, terrorize and victimize the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. The British army has 135 military installations, while the RUC has 161 fortified installations in the Six Counties.

The Irish freedom struggle is the biggest powder keg confronting the rulers of the UK whose decline as an imperialist power is continuing under the depression conditions facing world capitalism.

Faced with unbreakable resistance by Irish toilers to national oppression and discrimination, the British government - which has dominated Ireland for centuries and militarily occupied the northern part of the country for the last 25 years - has been forced to seek a new arrangement in its oldest colony. The crisis-ridden Major government is unable to take the decisive action necessary to bring about Britain's withdrawal today, but withdrawal is only a matter of time.

The bombing in Manchester today reflects the fact that the Republican Movement is undefeated. The Major government has no one but themselves to blame for the bomb. They were the ones who, for eighteen months of cease-fire, from August 1994 to February 1996, did nothing but delaying and putting obstacles in the way of the peace talks by demanding preconditions.

The true face of British justice can be seen in the treatment of Irish prisoner Pat Kelly. While Kelly was in British jails his medical condition was criminally neglected to the point where he is now terminally ill with cancer. Kelly, like other political prisoners, would not be in jail if it wasn't for the British occupation of Ireland.

The actions of the Manchester police before and after the bomb show that the police are not organized or trained to protect people. That is not their job. Their role is to protect the interests of property, big business and the state. Consequently shops were not closed and evacuated in the hour after the warning, resulting in thousands of people being in the area when the bomb went off.

Working people in Britain and Ireland have a common interest in the fight for Irish self-determination. Ending British rule in Ireland will inflict a blow against the ruling rich who exploit workers in both countries.

Free political prisoners! Disband the RUC!  
 
 
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