éirígí condemn daubing of election poster with racist slogan

28/05/09

Tir Chonaill éirígí activist Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig has described as “deplorable” the daubing of an election poster at Crolly with a racist slogan and has called on politicians and political parties in the region to unreservedly condemn the incident and those who carried it out.

The slogan was daubed on the election poster of Donegal local election candidate Stella Oladapo. Ms Oladapo is a Nigerian native who has lived in the county for many years. MacGiolla Easbuig said: “This is an appalling incident. Those who defaced this candidates poster with their racist comments are to be condemned. For our part, éirígí believe that racism is never justifiable and must always be challenged wherever it rears its ugly head. As socialists and republicans we believe there is no place in Irish society for this type of race hatred.”He added: “The entire community throughout Donegal, especially out here in the west of the county, must unite in our opposition to such incidents. As Irish people, and particularly as Donegal people who have seen such high levels of emigration to foreign shores over the years, we have ourselves often been on the receiving end of racism in Britain and elsewhere throughout the world. That racism was unjustified and unacceptable then just as this racism against this election candidate is unjustified and unacceptable now.” MacGiolla Easbuig concluded: “There is no place for people within our society who espouse racism and try to spread race hate. I am calling on the entire community to unite in our condemnation of this incident and those who carried it out. In particular it is vitally important that all politicians and political parties in the region publicly condemn this incident in an unequivocal manner. Those responsible for this incident must be left in no doubt that their views do not represent the views of the people of Donegal and that their actions wont be tolerated.”

éirígí claim administration playing with Donegal women’s lives by further delay in BreastCheck
29/04/09

Tír Chonaill éirígí activist Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig has accused the Fianna Fáil-led administration of “playing with the lives of women” following revelations that the BreastCheck screening programme, which was due to be rolled out in Donegal before the end of the year, is now to be delayed yet again.

He was speaking following a meeting in Dublin between Donegal cancer campaigners and the CEO of BreastCheck Tony O’Brien. Mr O’Brien informed campaigners that, due to the public sector recruitment freeze in the Twenty-Six Counties, they would be unable to proceed with the roll-out of BreastCheck in Donegal by the end of this year as planned.

MacGiolla Easbuig said: “The continued denial of this potentially life saving service to the women of County Donegal is scandalous. The BreastCheck programme commenced eight-years-ago. To date, the programme has been rolled out throughout the vast majority of the state, yet, despite repeated promises, women in Donegal continue to be denied access to what is an extremely valuable and potentially life saving service.”

He added: “As far back as March 3, 2003, the then health minister Micháel Martin announced that BreastCheck would be in place and operating in Donegal by September 2005 at the very latest. In December 2006, Mary Harney stated that screening would begin by the spring of 2007. The latest promise was that it would be rolled out by the end of this year. That promise has now also been broken as a direct result of cutbacks, specifically the recruitment freeze in the public sector.

“Breast cancer is the single biggest cause of death from cancer for women. Every year, more than 600 women die from the disease, while more than 2,000 others are diagnosed with it. The reality is that, in the vast majority of cases, the early detection of breast cancer makes the chances of a full recovery extremely likely, while also making the entire treatment and recovery process far less traumatic for the patient involved.

“According to the All-Ireland Cancer Statistics 1998-2000, between the years 1994 and 2000, mortality rates from breast cancer fell by more than 20 per cent in the Six Counties where screening programmes were well established, while, in the Twenty-Six County state, where no screening programme had yet been established, mortality figures remained the same in 2000 as they were in 1994.”
MacGiolla Easbuig concluded: “By continuing to deny women in Donegal access to a proper screening service which is available throughout most other counties, this administration is playing with people’s lives. The simple facts are that women in Donegal will die unnecessarily from breast cancer as a direct result of this administration’s policy. There is no excuse for any further delay and the Dublin government needs to begin the immediate roll out of the BreastCheck programme for women in Donegal.”

éirígí call for public report from council over St Patricks Day junkets

22/0/09

éirígí are calling on both Donegal County Council and Letterkenny Town Council to compile and publish detailed reports relating to the costs incurred by the taxpayer and the benefits supposedly obtained from the recent St Patricks day junkets abroad by Councillors and Council officials from both local authorities.

Tir Chonaill éirígí spokesperson Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig said: “This year, Councillors and Council officials headed abroad once again to celebrate St Patricks Day. Both Donegal County Council and Letterkenny Town Council sent delegations. Donegal County Council sent two councillors and their Director of Corporate Services while Letterkenny Town Council sent three councillors and the Town Engineer to represent them in the US.”

He added: “As the recession worsens and cutbacks are being made in esential services such as health and education, the county council themselves have also announced their own cutbacks including job lay-offs. Yet while they are letting workers go and services are being affected due to supposed lack of finance, they apparently have no difficulty in finding the finance to fund these trips abroad.”

He added: “I am now calling on the both Donegal County and Letterkenny Town councils to both compile and to publish a detailed report into the latest St Patricks Day junkets. The public need to be made aware of the cost of these trips to the taxpayer and see a detailed breakdown of what was spent by each individual and for what purpose. Before they travelled, what did the officials and the politicians hope to achieve on their trip and what now have they actually achieved? They need to tell us who they held meetings with and provide detail of the discussions that took place? Have they secured new employment or have they secured any benefits whatsoever for this region or the country as a whole?”

He concluded: “If they have nothing to hide and indeed secured jobs or other benefits for the country and for this region then they will produce and publish this report without delay. If on the other hand they refuse to do so, then the question needs to be asked – what are they hiding and what exactly are they spending the hard earned tax payers money on?”

éirígí slam FF-led administration over food parcel queues and increasing poverty
3/04/09
éirígí Tír Chonaill spokesperson Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig has slammed the Fianna Fáil-led administration over increasing poverty levels in the Twenty-Six County state.

MacGiolla Easbuig was speaking following revelations in the media this week of massive queues at the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin to provide meals and food parcels for those in poverty. MacGiolla Easbuig worked for a number of years as a volunteer in this day centre.

He said: “The images in the media this week of hundreds of people queuing outside the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin is an indictment of the failed policies of Brian Cowen, Mary Coughlan and the rest of the Fianna Fáil-led administration. The scenes were reminiscent of images of Dublin in the early 1900s and not something we would expect to see in this day and age. It is scandalous that, in a state where there is undoubted wealth, that so much poverty still exists. This poverty is on the increase to such an extent that more than 500 people were queuing to be fed on the streets of our capital city.”

He added: “The failure of this and successive administrations to deal with poverty in Irish society is truly shameful. They have made clear by their inaction that they do not care about the plight of the adults and children who are struggling to feed themselves on a daily basis. This poverty is not just confined to Dublin; it is also on the increase in Donegal. As jobs continue to be lost at an alarming rate in the county – there were another 173 redundancies in March alone – more and more families in Donegal are faced with an uncertain future and the prospect of having to survive below the poverty line.

“Fianna Fáil squandered the wealth generated over many years by Irish workers and allowed it be pilfered by a small elite of already wealthy people. They failed to invest in essential public services such as health, education and transport. Now, they are making working class people bear the brunt of their savage cutbacks and pay for the greed of the business class.”

He concluded: “Tinkering around the edges of the current economic system will not solve our problems. The reality is that the capitalist economy is not designed to benefit the vast majority of people. Capitalism guarantees poverty, exploitation and periodic crashes that plunge so many into despair. Unless we bring an end to the system of capitalism then the greed, profiteering and exploitation that has caused this economic crisis will continue.”

Close Down the Torture Centre and Get Out of Guantanamo
26/02/09

On January 22, US president Barack Obama issued an executive order declaring that the torture facility and internment camp at Guantanamo Bay in occupied Cuba is to be closed within a year.

Obama also declared that the extensive network of secret CIA prisons dotted across the globe would be shut down as well. If there is any real substance to this order then it will be welcomed, not least by those who have been processed along the USA’s long and lawless conveyer belt of internment without trial, degradation and torture.

The illegal military base in Guantanamo Bay has come to epitomise the brutal, indiscriminate and squalid nature of the so-called ‘war on terror’. Its existence legitimises state sanctioned torture and the abandonment of the notion of due process. Everything about it stands in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention articles on the treatment of prisoners of war.
As an adjunct to its wars of conquest in Afghanistan and Iraq, the existence of the Guantanamo facility has once again brought into stark relief the real nature of US imperialism. Who will ever forget the images of nameless prisoners ghosted from their countries of origin being transported around ‘Gitmo’, bound and shackled on trolleys with eyes and ears covered to disorient and deprive them of sensory stimulation? This is to say nothing of the ‘water boarding’ and other degrading treatment and torture that prisoners have been subjected to.

From the perspective of US establishment critics of the Bush administration’s ‘war on terror’, the fundamental error of the Bush era was not that it was inhumane or unethical, but that it was too crude in its execution; it was too indiscriminate, open and unapologetic about its brutal treatment of its ‘terrorist’ enemy and their ‘fellow travellers’ (for this, read family members, compatriots and co-religionists). It relied too naively on unquestioning obedience to the premise that “you are either with us or against us”.

This strategy worked quite well in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. It was, however, a strategy that was ultimately going to reflect negatively on the US and hinder the achievement of its objectives. The neo-con philosophy as extolled by Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld et al. had led the US to an all-time nadir in its relations with the wider world - hence the need for ‘change’; change meaning, of course, a measure of tinkering without fundamentally altering the role of the USA as the world’s foremost superpower/bully/policeman.

Just as Bill Clinton presented himself as a real alternative to CIA supremo George Bush senior, the Obama political programme, while promising a break with the immediate past, will be marked by a difference in presentation rather than substance.

The abandonment of Guantanamo as a place of detention and torture is merely indicative of a need to deflect criticism from the US as an endorser of torture and the inhuman and degrading treatment of its prisoners without actually ending the practice.

John Pilger, in an article entitled Obama and the Politics of Bollocks, recently commented how far from “shutting down the CIA's secret prison network, Obama's executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without the threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, ‘current and former intelligence officials said the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role.’ A semantic sleight of hand is that ‘long term prisons’ are changed to ‘short term prisons’; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America's numerous ‘covert actions’ will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet's in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.

“Bush's open support for torture, and Donald Rumsfeld's extraordinary personal overseeing of certain torture techniques, upset many in America's ‘secret army’ of subversive military and intelligence operators as it exposed how the system worked. Obama's nominee for director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said the Army Field Manual may include new forms of ‘harsh interrogation’, which will be kept secret.

“Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush's assault on constitutional and international law.”

Nor were they intended to. One must see the disingenuous closure of Guantanamo in its wider context. In the same way that this move does not signify an end to the detention and torture of suspected and actual enemy combatants, the continued existence of a US naval base in Guantanamo signifies a policy of continued belligerence towards Cuba.

The fact of the matter is that Guantanamo Bay is Cuban territory. That the return of this occupied territory to Cuba is not considered an option is testament to the fact that Obama is an imperialist, as all of his utterances in relation to Cuba demonstrate.

Obama is an imperialist in the same way that all other US presidents have been, regardless of whether they deem themselves a ‘Republican’ or a ‘Democrat’ (while actually being neither in any real sense of the words). There is nothing that signifies the imperialist nature of the US more than does its long-standing hostile and annexationist policy towards Cuba.

In some for his recent ‘reflections’, Fidel Castro has addressed the possibility for real change under an Obama administration. Of late, he has felt compelled to draw attention to the reality that “maintaining a military base in Cuba against the will of the people violates the most elemental principles of international law… not respecting Cuba's will is an arrogant act and an abuse of immense power against a little country”.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has also echoed this demand by stating that, “now he [Obama] should return Guantanamo and Guantanamo Bay to the Cubans because that is Cuban territory.”
The immediate response to these reasonable demands was as one would have expected. In a subsequent article, Fidel, quoting Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to the effect that “the least said on Cuba, the better”, concluded that it was his view that “sooner rather than later, Obama’s politics are losing their virginity”.

Those who want to gauge what Obama’s presidency is really going to be like need only look at how US policy towards Cuba unfolds. It is the considered wisdom of many in Cuba that the blockade will outlive Obama. It will outlive Obama because he and the wealthy class of people he represents believe that they have the right to interfere in the economic, political and internal affairs of Cuba.

The naval base at Guantanamo Bay, established by the Platt Amendment of 1901, exists for the very same reasons. Just as the detention and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo must be ended, so, too, must the criminal economic blockade of Cuba and the occupation of every inch of the Guantanamo Bay region.

Cuimhníonn Dún na nGall ar na Stailceoirí Ocrais
04/11/08
(English version follows.)
Bhailigh poblachtóirí ó Dhún na nGall agus níos faide amach sa Chlochán Liath Dé Sathairn, 25 Deireadh Fómhair, le freastal ar phlé beoga ar stailc ocrais 1981, a tionchar agus na ceachtanna le foghlaim.
Labhair triúr fear a bhí ar thús cadhnaíochta sna himeachtaí le linn na streachailte ar son stádas polaitiúil leis an lucht éisteachta.
Bhí an tEoghanach Tommy McKearney páirteach i stailc ocrais 1980 agus dhiúltaigh sé bia do 53 lá. Is eagraí é anois le Ceardchumann Neamhspleách na nOibrithe.

Chaith Laurence McKeown ó Bhaile Raghnaill 70 lá ar stailc ocrais in 1981. Óna scaoileadh saor ó phríosún, tá Laurence ina údar ar cúpla leabhar agus dráma, ina measc an scannán H3, a rinne na léirmheastóirí ollghairdeas dó.

Bhí Richard O’Rawe ó Bhéal Feirste ina OCP sna H-Bloic le linn stailc ocrais 1981 agus is údar é leis an leabhar Blanketmen.

Bhí lámh ag gníomhaíoch éirígí Micheál Cholm Mac Giolla Easbuig in eagrú imeacht an Sathairn agus bhí sé ina chathaoirleach ar an chruinniú a raibh freastal maith air.
Arsa é: “27 bliain ar aghaidh ón stailc ocrais, tá suim fós ag neart daoine i gcuimhneamh agus i bhfoghlaim faoi mhairtírigh na H-Bloc agus faoin streachailt príosúin eipiciúil a thug siadsan agus a gcomrádaithe faoi. Bhí an tinreamh ag an chruinniú Dé Sathairn mar fhianaise de sin.
“Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil le Laurence, Richard agus Tommy as ucht a rannpháirtíochta agus leis an lucht éisteachta as bheith airdeallach agus forránach.
“Is ríthábhachtach an obair muid féin a theagasc faoi streachailt na saoirse. Ní mór dúinn foghlaim ónar stair dhéanach agus í a úsáid le dul i bhfeidhm ar an todhchaí. Chuidigh anocht go mór leis an iarracht sin. Ba chóir do mhuintir Dhún na nGall bheith ag súil lena thuilleadh san am atá romhainn.”

Donegal Remembers the Hunger Strikers
Republicans from across Donegal and further afield gathered in Dungloe on Saturday, October 25, to attend a lively discussion on the 1981 hunger strike, its impact and the lessons to be learned.
Three men who were at the coalface of events during the struggle for political status addressed the assembled audience.
Tyrone man Tommy McKearney participated in the 1980 hunger strike and refused food for 53 days. He is now an organiser for the Independent Workers’ Union.
Laurence McKeown from Randalstown in County Antrim spent 70 days on hunger strike in 1981. Since his release from prison, Laurence has authored a number of books and plays, including the critically acclaimed film, H3.
Richard O’Rawe from Belfast was a PRO in the H Blocks at the time of the 1981 hunger strike and is also the author of Blanketmen.
Donegal éirígí activist Micheál Cholm Mac Giolla Easbuig helped organise and chaired Saturday’s event which was very well attended.
He said: “27 years on from the hunger strike, many people are still interested in remembering and learning about the H Block martyrs and the epic prison struggle they and their comrades undertook. The attendance in Dungloe on Saturday night was proof of that.
“I would like to thank Laurence, Richard and Tommy for their contributions and the audience for being both attentive and engaging.
“The task of educating ourselves about the freedom struggle is an essential one. We must learn from our very recent past and use it to best impact upon the future. Tonight has very much assisted in that endeavor. The people of Donegal should look forward to more of the same in the time ahead.”