IRELAND 1981, TURKEY 2001

20 YEARS AND THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES
WE SALUTE THE MARTYRS OF 1981 HUNGER STRIKE IN IRELAND AND THE STRUGGLE OF THE IRISH PEOPLE AGAINST BRITISH IMPERIALISM.

We have witnessed many developments within the last twenty years.

We have witnessed victories and defeats, courage and cowardliness, resistance and surrender. The Soviet Bloc collapsed and imperialism declared its victory.

Has imperialism really been victorious?

The people of Iraq people were bombarded for years, but could
imperialism make them submit?

The Palestinian people are still fighting against Zionism and imperialism. Could Israel achieve its victory over them?

Hundreds of revolutionary prisoners have been on a Death Fast for more than seven months against the fascist state in Turkey and the imperialist powers.

Could fascism make them surrender?

We know that these examples will become more and more. The peoples of the world will not accept the imperialist New World order
or globalisation or other imperialist policies.

Twenty years ago on a small island called Ireland a group of prisoners declared that neither the four walls of the dungeons they were being held in, nor the torture and oppression they were being subjected to could make them abandon their beliefs. This was the manifesto of a human being against tyranny. This was a path, which inevitably will face death when and if it comes.

This is the key point. Is there any other power on earth, which can defeat a single human being that is prepared to die if necessary? Bourgeois ideologists say life is sacred, there is nothing in the world for which lives can be sacrificed for. This maybe true for them. But without facing the certain consequences achievement is not possible. Development of Spartacus, James Connolly, Ernesto Che Guevara, Mahir Cayan and those who died during the defence of Stalingrad against fascism. There are millions of people who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the future, for freedom and independence, for democracy and socialism and for a dignified life.

Twenty years ago Bobby Sands and his comrades shook the world from the H Blocks of Long Kesh. Today our thoughts are with them and their families as we remember their resistance to the terror and oppression they and their fellow prisoners faced in the prisons. Through their sacrifice they wrote history and obtained their victory. Their struggle was not just for better prison conditions, nor was it confined to the struggle for Irish freedom, it was a struggle for all of the worlds oppressed. They are models for those who struggle for justice throughout the world, they taught people how to fight for independence and freedom.

Today the legacy of the H Block Hunger Strikes lives on in the F-Type prisons of Turkey. The lesson Bobby Sands taught the world has not been forgotten by those who are struggling in the prisons and hospitals of Turkey for a dignified life. We have given 51 martyrs so far and hundreds are waiting for their turn. The new groups of Death Fast fighters are joining the resistance. In Turkey’s prisons a battle is taking place before the eyes of the peoples of the world. This is a battle between right and wrong.

Today Bobby Sands became Ahmet Ibili, Patsy O’Hara became Cengiz Soydas, Francis Hughes became Fidan Kalsen, Micky Devine became Hasan Gungormez.

Irish Hunger Strikers in the H blocks of Long Kesh became the Death Fast resisters of the F-type prisons of Turkey.

Throughout the world many revolutionary movements lost their way and did not have the confidence to continue their struggle. Instead they made peace with imperialism and were co-opted into the system. Undeniably this trend can be found in Ireland. Many are left wondering what the sacrifices were for. But the people’s of the world will never forget those who fell for them, they live on in all of us.
Still today Irish people are finding themselves in prison for the cause of Irish freedom. The rights won by the Hunger Strikers have not been afforded to them. A new protest in looming in the prisons of Ireland. The captives in the prisons of Ireland should not think that they are alone. The policy of isolation will not succeed in either Ireland or Turkey, just as it could not succeed against Bobby Sands and his comrades.

BOTH IRELAND AND TURKEY WILL
BE FREE OF IMPERIALIST OCCUPATION.
LONG LIVE THE LEGACY OF THE H BLOCK HUNGER STRIKERS!
LONG LIVE OUR DEATH FAST RESISTANCE!
DOWN WITH FASCISM AND IMPERIALISM!
WE WILL WIN! BEIR BUA!

DHKC London Information Bureau

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