On the 31st March 1999 the then Leadership of the Irish Republican Movement issued a statement to coincide with the Remembrance of the 1916 Easter Rising when an Irish Republic free from the imperialist domination of was declared, the 1916 Proclamation was unequivocal and forthright its wording and intent.
This statement on behalf of the Provisional Irish Republican Army paid tribute to the Volunteers, and their steadfast commitment to the cause of Irish Freedom, volunteers who had fought the might of the British Army to a standstill, volunteers who had endured so much with the support and succour of an Irish Nation suffering through the depravation of partition and economic starvation by the imperialists and their lackies the Free State, decades of sectarian brutality by the death squads of Orangeism and the dirty war tactics of MI5/FRU/RUC/SAS et al.
The underpinning in the statement support for the Treaty signed by the British Imperialist and the Free State and the 5 year long cease fire of the IRA, saying “ the guns of the IRA are Silent” all the while the guns of the occupier and its death squads remained targeted on the population. The statement went on to say, “The potential of the peace process to deliver real and lasting peace lies in its ability to bring meaningful change, to remove the injustices which created the conflict and to end the conflict itself.
If the political will exists the peace process contains the potential to resolve the conflict and deliver a durable peace”.
“ The challenge for everyone, but particularly the British government, remains the removal of the causes of conflict in our country”.
23 years on from that statement and much has happened, but little has changed, the then IRA surrendered its weapons, the Occupier built new more advanced intelligence systems and building solidifying its presence, the death squads of Orangeism continued to target the population, the RUC changed tactics, now using internment by remand as a political control mechanism, SF administer British Imperialist rule in the 6 of the 9 Counties of Ulster, the causes of conflict remain, over the next number of days large sections of society will be held behind barriers erected by the occupational forces, unable to go about their daily lives due to the triumphalism of a sectarian organisation who continue to have large numbers within the occupational forces as uniformed armed sectarian bigoted paramilitary thugs!
The statement issued in 1999 was a precursor to the next stage of the counter revolution so desperately wanted and needed by the imperialist regime, a precursor to the subsummation of the then Irish Republican Movement through the leadership and treachery of an elite few whose economic status has more than trebled and continues to grow using the sacrifices made by so many and the imagery of those who fell in resistance to the imperialist.
Today resistance to the imperialist occupation of Ireland grows, it is through this new growth that the status quo of imperialism in Ireland will end, it is through the revitalisation of Irish Socialist Republicanism that the Proclamation of 1916 will be achieved.
The voices of those who fought and died, those who suffered incarceration, torture and murder by the imperialist occupier and their counter revolutionary proxies continue to be heard, Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmett, James Connolly, Liam Mellows, Liam Lynch, Cathal Brugha, Bobby Sands, Ciaran Fleming, Padraig Kearney and Jim Lynagh are not just names through the generations of resistance, but beacons to light the flames of resistance to ensure that the connection with Imperialist regimes around the world are broken and the establishment of a 32 County All Ireland Socialist Republic is a reality for us all.