Media distortions hurt Ireland

Bombers not IRA wing

By RICHARD ORLANDINI

Sean Keane, General Secret- of the Irish Republican yuibs of the U.S. and Canada, nd a member of the Official rjsh Republican Army, has been yorking in Canada and recently yas interviewed by the Cana- jjan Tribune.

Mir. Keane explained that his fe in Canada was to establish ¢gpublican Clubs here, for pub- ic relations and defense. The de- ene work he said, is to defend he “Irish people’s struggle from he lies being carried by the ngws services to discredit the syruggles being conducted in feland. The news services; UPI, AP and Reuters are headquarter- : in London and their main sgurce of information is from hye British Army in Northern eland. And one can’t expect ese sources to be reliable.” As an example of the kind of jstortion that is particularly armful to the struggles in Ire- gnd, Mr. Keane pointed out at, “In press reports here, Jhenever there is a bombing, it y blamed on the IRA. But what e press fails to do is to dif- yrentiate between the Official

to which I belong, and the Ovisionals who, because they only have a militaristic program

d are completely devoid of a

litical line, play into the hands f the British. The Provisionals, ho with their bombing cam- aign have killed innocent civil- jams, are not a wing of the IRA

the press reports, but are ac- gially a splinter group that xoke with the Officials because e Officials insisted upon car- ying on the civil rights move- ent in Ireland. The Provision- S are now little more than gun- rrying elitists whose lack of nderstanding of the complex litical situation has led them jyo a stage where their bombing campaign has fizzled out.”

Right to Arrest “Another distortion in the edia coverage of the Irish truggle arose last week when ‘jhe Irish parliament in Dublin ‘was debating the passage of a ill which would give police of- ficers the right to arrest any IRA guspects. The bill would also put fhe burden of proof on those ar- ested to prove that they are pot members of the IRA.

As the bill was being debated, and meeting considerable oppo- Ygition, a bomb was exploded in

‘the offices of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. The ress immediately said that it {was the doing of the IRA when jt was probably done by the government to scare through the assage of the bill, or it was done by the British Army. Need- sifess to say, as a result of the “bombing, the opposition to the 1$ pill collapsed and it passed.” ; Mr. Keane also discussed the role that the Canadian and U.S. governments have been playing ‘Nim the suppression of the Irish struggles. “In Suffield, Alberta, at a Canadian Army base, Brit- ish troops, we suspected, were trained for duty in Ireland. The base commander told us the troops were being trained for NATO and not for Ireland. But later, Britain requested of NATO that it be allowed to withdraw three of the units, which had been trained in Suffield, from Europe for use in Ireland. The

jackets, The Queen’s Own High- danders and The Queen’s Own Regiment. :

units were the Royal Green-:

Working-class unity

, democratic rights are sought by Cathal Gould-

ing (above), Chief of Staff of the Official IRA, whose spokesman, Sean Keane, gave the accompanying interview.

Okayed by Nixon

“The request for their with- drawal went to General. Good- pastor of the U.S. Army (NATO force) and from there it was re- ferred to Nixon. Nixon approv- ed the request and ‘covered’ the withdrawal by putting more U.S. troops into Europe. For this Nixon was publicly thanked by the British Parliament. Can- ada trains them and the U.S. gives them the permission to go and kill.”

When asked about the rela- tions of the Officials to other political parties in Ireland, Mr. Keane noted that “the Commun- ist Party of Ireland and the Of- ficial IRA have worked together in the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. In fact this

BRUSSELS — The 2nd Con- gress of Greek Anti-dictatorship Committees Abroad took place here in November. In a message to the Congress, the Communist Party of Greece greeted all its countrymen abroad who, through their anti-dictatorship fight were contributing to the struggle of the Greek people to bring down the junta.

The Congress, it said, was taking place at a time of conti- nuing fascist terror but, simul- taneously, of increasing resist- ance to the dictatorship, a grow- ing spirit of unity, and a sharp- ening of conflict within the ranks of the junta itself.

The junta’s policies, dictated by domestic and foreign mono- polies and the imperizlist inter- ests of the USA and NATO, were making social, economic and national problems more acute, and gave rise to serious dangers for the people and the nation.

The message continued:

“The anti-popular posicy of the junta on the one hand, the ever- increasing military obligations it is undertaking to NATO and the American imperialists and, in particular, the granting of bases to the U.S. Sixth Fleet and -the opening interference in Cyp- rus, have meant the chasm divid- ing the junta from the people has deepened, and opposition to the junta has grown simultane-

was one of the differences that led to the breakaway of the Pro- visionals.

“The Provisionals felt that the civil rights struggle had served its purpose so they tried to break up that struggle. They also tried to isolate it so that it was just the Officials and the Com- munist Party of Ireland. But the people saw through this ruse and recognized that winning struggles around civil rights forces the British to lose some control of their domination of Northern Ireland.” All this isn’t to say that there aren’t differ- ences: between. the Communist Party and the IRA but neither allows those differences to pre- vent united action on certain issues.”

ously with anti-Americanism.

“All this prevented the junta’s effort to break its isolation from being successful as also its ef- forts to decide international public opinion.

Communist Proposals

“The various reactionary solu- tions which Greek and foreign reactionary forces are preparing behind the scene to maintain jin essence the regime of coercion and the military positions of American imperialism and NATO, cannot take the country out of the impasse, solve the crucial problems or lead to the restoration of democratic free- dom.

“The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) considers that the only way to national progress and the restoration of demo- cratic freedom, is to bring down the junta and guarantee the sovereign right of the people freely to decide by its vote the constitution and government of its choice. An. essential prere- quisite for this is co-ordinated activity, organization and strug- gle of all the anti-dictatorship forces on the basis of a mini- mum program acceptable to all opponents of the dictatorship:

e formation of a government

by the anti-dictatorship par- ties and organizations,

e abolition of pre-dictatorship

and dictatorship special laws, and laws 509 and 375,

“Remind West Germany | of West Berlin status

*

The. West German Govern- ment was continuing to make unauthorized attempts to exert ‘its authority over West Berlin, the official German Democratic mews agency ADN stated in October.

Quoting “competent quarters in the GDR, the news agency stated:

“In connection with the depo- sition in London and Washing- ton of the documents ratifying the ‘Treaty on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astro- nauts, and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space,’ the Government of the German Fe- deral Republic made a declara- tion stating that it was also valid for ‘Land Berlin’.

“Competent quarters in the GDR emphasized in this connec- tion that the German Federal Republic has no authority to

Arabs show

BERLIN (ADN) — Within the framework of the recent 16th Cultural Festival in the capital of the German Democratic Re- public, Berlin’s theatre goers saw a guest performance by the Tunis Theatre Company, in the GDR for the first time.

The Tunis company showed the play The Puppeteer by Leba- nese writer Miss Andree Chedid. The play was given in Arabic, but simultaneously dubbed by a German actor. It is about a plot laid by puppets against their master, the puppeteer.

make such a statement, since Berlin (West) is not a Land of the German Federal Republic, and may not be governed by it... This state of affairs and legal position is categorically under-

lined the Quadripartite Agree-

- ment of September 3rd, 1971.”

The relevant paragraph of one of the documents forming part of the agreement stated: “The Government of the French Re- public, the United Kingdom and the United States of America de- clare .. . that the Western sect- ors of Berlin . . . continue not to be a constituent part of the Federal Republic of Germany and not to be governed by it.”

Footnote: One comment was that to avoid international com- plications, lost astronauts and “objects launched into outer space” should make every effort not to land in West Berlin.

—German Democratic Report

theatre arts

The play revives such old Arab traditions as that of sha- dow-play. Oriental music, play- ed on the lute, flute and Egyp- tian drum, underlined the play’s oriental style and Arab ‘char- acter.

Syrian Cherif Khaznadar, who staged the play, is not unknown here. He was first to present Brechtian plays to an Arab audi- ence. Together with Arab stu- dents he staged Brecht’s The Ex- ception and the Rule at the Berliner Ensemble theatre.

ictatorship rally

e all anti-dictatorship parties and organizations, including the Communist Party of Greece, to function freely,

e immediate release of all political prisoners and the granting of a general poli- tical amnesty, and

e free elections .

Greeks United The message, signed on behalf of the Central Committee by

First Secretary, Kostas Kolyan-

nis, continued, “in the hard

struggle of our people, under conditions of persecution, impri-

sonment, bloody coercion, the Greeks abroad, who are flesh and blood of the Greek people, stand firmly at the fortifications of the fight against the dictator- ship, and the struggling to bring it down. Their work is informing international public opinion on the situation in our country.

“In this noble and patriotic task of moral and material aid and solidarity with our strug- gling people, the anti-dictator- ship committees are the most obvious form to rally together, abroad .. .”