The meeting, sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum, featured presentations by Sinn Fein activists Terence Kirby and Bobby Laverty. Sinn Fein is the political party in Ireland leading the struggle to end the British division of the country and occupation of the north.

Kirby joined the republican movement, which seeks a unified Ireland free from British rule, when he was 14 years old. He was interned without trial in the 1970s and convicted of participating in an armed Irish Republican Army (IRA) attack. Kirby was sent to Long Kesh prison, where he joined with other Irish republicans demanding recognition as political prisoners.

Ten H-Block prisoners, beginning with Bobby Sands, died during the hunger strike. Sands was elected to the British parliament on the 41st day of the strike. Some 100,000 people attended his funeral. In 1983 Kirby escaped from Long Kesh along with 37 other Irish political prisoners and eventually settled in California. A decade later he was arrested along with three other former prisoners by the U.S. government and threatened with extradition. Their case, known as the H-Block Four, focused attention on the history of human rights abuses in Ireland by the British government, with the complicit support of Washington.

This meeting was the first time that Kirby has spoken publicly about his experiences since his escape.

"I'm not a politician, I'm a soldier," Kirby told the audience. "Why did we do the hunger strike? Why did we go on the blanket? It was for the principle." The Irish freedom fighter told the audience that the Good Friday peace accords, signed by Sinn Fein and several pro-British Unionist parties, represented the will of the people. "In any struggle, if you don't have the support of the people, you have nothing. But [the struggle] will never be over until the British leave Ireland, either voluntarily or by force."

Until recently Laverty was a Sinn Fein city council member in North Belfast. He explained how Sinn Fein representatives conduct themselves in office, treating Protestants the same as Catholics, Laverty said. "But the struggle in Ireland is not a religious struggle between Catholics and Protestants, but a political struggle between the Irish working people and the British Crown. I'm opposed to killing someone for their religion. Every imperial government creates divisions among people."

Noted Puerto Rican poet Piri Thomas read two poems by Bobby Sands and pointed out the similarities between the Puerto Rican struggle against U.S. imperialism and the fight for a united Ireland against British imperialism. He said Puerto Rican political prisoners in New York went on a 10-day hunger strike in solidarity with Bobby Sands at the time.

Barbara Bowman of the Socialist Workers Party described being at both the San Francisco and Seattle St. Patrick's Day parades this year, and the receptivity of many in the crowd to contingents carrying large photographs of the 10 dead hunger strikers, along with banners demanding "British Troops Out Of Ireland!"

"After 30 years of a brutal military occupation, Britain has been unable to break the Irish struggle. This has weakened Loyalist forces, and opened more political space for the republicans," Bowman said. Fighters around the world today have the example of the Cuban Revolution," "which was able to defeat U.S. imperialism."

Fourteen copies of Pathfinder's new book, Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas, were purchased by forum participants.

Bill Kalman is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 120.  
 
 
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