Mac Cionnaith Pledges Support For Victims Of State Violence
The General Secretary of the socialist republican party Éirígí, Breandán Mac Cionnaith, has said that the party’s members and supporters will give their full support to the planned “Truth and Justice – Not Jubilation” march and rally in Belfast this Saturday [June 23].
In a statement, Mac Cionnaith said, “It is quite apt that a public event focussing on the victims of state violence should be held in Belfast this weekend – just days before the visit by Elizabeth Windsor to her Irish colony. Our party members and supporters will attend the march and rally in solidarity with those many hundreds of families across Ireland who lost parents, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters at the hands of all those forces of which Elizabeth Windsor is the Commander-in-Chief.
“On Monday of this week, further proof was produced in the form of official British government documents which demonstrated how in July 1972, the state at the highest levels officially sanctioned the use of deadly force by its troops against Irish citizens and ensured that members of the Crown forces would receive indemnity from prosecution.
“On Wednesday of this week, the ongoing outworking of that forty year old policy was reinforced when it was revealed that the British government had refused to hold a public inquiry into the murder of eleven innocent people, including a mother of eight and a Catholic priest, in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast by British paratroopers.
“It is therefore highly unlikely that Elizabeth Windsor, whose successive governments, forces and agents were responsible for hundreds of deaths, will be wearing any sackcloth or ashes as she flaunts herself throughout the Six Counties in a display of imperialist triumphalism, designed to underpin and reinforce the partition of Ireland.
“It is also highly unlikely that all those families of British state violence will ever receive the truth and justice they deserve while Britain remains in control of the Six Counties. That is why it is important that Saturday’s march and rally, with its clear and primary focus on Britain’s victims, receives the support it deserves.”