Unionist blackmail

That the award of a Nobel Peace Prize to First Minister David Trimble was premature should be obvious to anyone who does not want to see the Irish struggle for freedom from turning again to the gun and the bomb. Trimble's insistence upon the unilateral disarmament of the Provisional Irish Republican Army is one more strategic device designed by this leader of Orange sectarian bigotry to destroy what voters in all of Ireland want to work.

Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, and the Irish Republican Army have shown that they are willing to give the new political arrangements a chance to work. It is obvious that the sectarian zealots led by Trimble are hell-bent on destroying those arrangements with one pretext or another.

Short of an announced timetable for a [British troop] withdrawal from Irish soil, which would be the ideal solution, a suggestion by Father Des Wilson makes perfect sense. He argued that the British government should inform all and sundry that "there will be a devolved government in Ireland's northeast, and it will consist of those who agree to join it...."

Then and only then would Trimble's Unionist blackmail be brought to an end.

Robert Nordlander 
Menasha, Wisconsin  
 

Struggle at Camp Justice

I thought that Militant readers should know about the events that have taken place on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation recently. On June 8, 1999, two young Lakota men were found dead in the small border town of White Clay, Nebraska, just two miles from Pine Ridge. There was little or no investigation into these deaths and they go unsolved.

White Clay has a population of only 22 but has four liquor establishments and sells more than $4 million dollars worth of alcohol every year--most of it to the people of Pine Ridge. One of the two slain men had been threatened by a liquor proprietor over an unpaid "tab." The proprietor told the victim that if he was not paid the "boys" would take care of him.

Seeing the apathy of the county cops, the people of Pine Ridge organized a rally and march to demand justice. According to many accounts, after the march had almost finished, people who were not participating in the march--mostly people who lived in the town and were drunk-- vandalized a market. The organizers of the march did not plan or condone what happened.

The following week, on July 3, 1999, another march took place, but this time it was greeted by cops in riot gear on the border of White Clay. The cops physically pushed back the protesters and arrested many. The protesters set up a camp, naming it Camp Justice, between Pine Ridge and White Clay, stating that they will stay there until justice is served. These two young men are the latest in a long list of murders of Native Americans that are not investigated or go unsolved.

Lou Newton 
Kent, Ohio  
 

New web page is great

I just wanted to compliment you on your new web page, which I think makes it possible to get the important information and analysis your paper provides a few days earlier. Also, thanks for defending the Cuban and Chinese governments from the slanders and aggressions of the imperialist American government. By the way, will the Socialist Workers Party be announcing a candidate for president soon? For some reason, it seems that a lot of progressives and radicals think that William Bradley is worthy of their support, so we need a real working-class alternative.

Ben Dover 
Durham, North Carolina  
 

Class struggle in Iran

I have read recent coverage in the capitalist media of the frictions in Iran between those they term the "mullahs" and the "reformers." I would appreciate an article explaining the significance of this in class terms, in the context of the class struggle in Iran today.

Robert Dees 
Palo Alto, California 
 

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