Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it.  Karl Marx
Economic & Philosophic Science Review
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No 984 Tuesday Feb 2 1999                                                                                                                         10p

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Ireland's national liberation fight continues to set the pace and direction of clapped-out British imperialism's snail's-pace retreat. The defeat of the 'Northern Ireland' colony will curb worried London from encouraging demoralised 'Unionist' intransigence.  Facing economic crisis troubles, more liberation war disasters and humiliation is the last thing the weakened and divided British ruling class needs. More last-minute rushed deals are likely to keep the Agreement on track, but at the price of more Orange concessions and compromise, not any renegotiation of the peace treaty for a new Ireland. Fascist reaction for a UDI historically not viable. Trimble's Assembly Executive posturing could prove barren. 'Gestures' are not the issue. Britain's cover-up can only stretch so far. Fulfilling the Agreement is the only way forward.

The Sinn Féin struggle in Ireland remains on course to deliver its history-making victory over dying British colonialism in the Occupied Zone in spite of a new blitzkrieg of anti-nationalist propaganda over so-called 'punishment beatings' and 'decommissioning'.

Die-hard colonist opposition to the Good Friday Agreement is heating its agitation up to fever pitch demanding an end to prisoner releases "until all 'punishment beatings' cease", and a denial of Sinn Féin's executive political rights "until the IRA starts decommissioning its weapons", etc. 

These are blunt attempts by the Orange order to use hysteria for renegotiating the Agreement, and a veto threat to stop it working — if there is no renegotiation.

As has been predictable thus far, the majority British Establishment longstanding decision to eventually dismantle its failed colonisation called 'Northern Ireland' has stayed intact.

Regardless of its frenzied hate-making against the IRA and Sinn Féin, the capitalist press itself has had to admit this week, in between the lines, that the imperialist state has had to do a deal with a powerful national liberation struggle which cannot be lightly cast aside:

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the RUC Chief Constable, said yesterday that despite a week of murder, abduction and at least two punishment shootings he did not support the Conservative Party's call for an end to the early release of prisoners. He was duty bound to support the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and the early release of prisoners was "an integral part" of those terms.

Tony Blair yesterday insisted the Northern Ireland peace process would move forward despite Unionist concerns. 

In a joint interview with the US Vice-President, Al Gore, on Sky News, he said: "All the way through this there has been tremendous problems and every so often a barrier is thrown across the road. You halt for a time and you have to try to work your way around it, and that's what we're trying to do."

In other words, the political revolution fought by Sinn Féin and the guerrilla war fought by the IRA have proved unbeatable, and British imperialism has had to sign a peace treaty with Irish Republicanism to bring this national liberation war to an end.

Typical of the cheating colonial treachery that Britain has inflicted on Ireland for 800 years, the Agreement aimed to create the greatest amount of confusion possible in order to hide the British imperialist retreat, while taking advantage of SDLP weakness and illusions to concede as little as possible so as to get a peace deal.

But up to now, Whitehall does seem to have understood that any attempt to step back from that minimum agreement for the snail's-pace dismantling of the old 'Northern Ireland', plus important measures towards Ireland's reunification, would go down disastrously badly with the national-liberation struggle.

And to have the war back again could prove colossally damaging for London, — being humiliating for governmental trustworthiness, embarrassing because of the ineptitude, and economically destructive (in terms of more potential huge bombing losses such as Manchester and Docklands; the vastly increased security costs; and the renewed flight of international currency trade and monetary businesses to rival financial centres abroad such as Frankfurt (which is already a threat to London's pre-eminence because of its Euro-management importance)). The Establishment majority in Whitehall would not lightly go back to war.

But to the background of 800 years of unvarying British treachery towards Ireland, even any sign of a London government reneging on part of the deal and renegotiating it, (in the interests of the die-hard colonists or the prestige of the British imperialist state), could bring  very painful and serious responses from the national-liberation struggle, where the hugely-respected leadership has already taken statesmanship to remarkable levels in these particular circumstances. 

Having fought the Partition tyranny to a standstill, this phenomenal mass national-liberation movement, complete with its heroic ability to create and sustain armed revolutionary resistance to British colonial repression at its most savage and relentless, will bridle at the first hint of yet another betrayal by London.

Possibly the biggest problem for the British Establishment's clear thinking and resolve is the difficulties it faces longterm within the world imperialist crisis as a whole (which so undermine and split the ruling class), rather than the symptomatic intransigence of its Orange 'Unionist' wing as such, as menacing as that is.

Focussing clearly, London can tell its 'Loyalist' stooges that the tail must not be allowed to wag the dog; but the century-old decline of British economic imperialism can only ever destroy increasing portions of British Establishment confidence, clarity, and resolve, leaving any firm action on any subject the exception rather than the rule.

The Tory revolt from the normal bi-partisanship on Ireland probably is almost as much a result of Conservative-Party aimlessness in general (rather than any specific reactionary confusion over a properly negotiated Agreement which the British imperialist state itself has signed — losing coherent agreed direction over the Euro and the German domination of the European Union, and over the equally charmless 'attractions' as well of going-it-alone, or becoming total stooges of utterly unreliable American imperialism.

But for the more small-minded Tories, with the more limited ambitions of just finding lost causes to whinge and bitch about a little longer, seeking to put the blame on others for their own ruling class's end-of-colonialism sclerotic uselessness and out-of-dateness), — — this belated dog-in-the-manger footstamping against historical inevitability has some 'realistic' appeal because of the slight chances of some 'success', —  throwing some spokes in the wheel of Ireland's justice at last.

Yet as easy as it might be for the more reactionary and indisciplined loose cannon of the Establishment at MI5 and the BBC's pro-'Loyalist' TV and Radio to air confused and frightened Tory waywardness try and help the Orangemen wreck the Agreement,there remains a sense of historic futility and seediness about it all which could paralyse even this relatively smallscale revolt (in global terms of British economic imperialism's very survival which is at stake elsewhere).

Although there is no real point or future in it however, the very disarray of old colonial Torydom might yet play just one last 'Orange card' to try to turn back the clock.

Yet even then, the odds must remain against any really destabilising UDI emerging at this late stage. At root, the 'Loyalist' tradition has not just been inseparable from British imperialism's triumphal world history, which is no more, — but also very importantly oriented on a successful capitalist class culture within the Occupied Zone community itself.

If and when the business interests (which used to be able to stay comfortable while remaining generally Orange) can no longer do so (because the investment climate has increasingly been taking a 'New Ireland' dimension from the American and European-Union involvement over the last 15-20 years of Anglo-Irish Treaty and Good Friday Agreement thinking), — then the whole major driving forces of what was 'Northern Ireland' will have gone out of it completely, leaving only embittered cultural habit behind.

While not underestimating the potential for such 'traditions' to produce largescale, organised, purposeful, extreme nastiness, there really would be no real incentive or point any longer, and possibly far less than was speculated about for intransigent White South Africa at the time of its retreat from direct colonial rule over the territory and its inhabitants, which came to nothing in the end in UDI terms.

Fascist motivation for such a "unilateral declaration of independence", if it came off, would indicate a decadent leap in the rate of decline & fall of the British imperialist state which has not been obviously on the cards immediately, (even allowing for the greater degree of bitterness and resentment in colonised Ireland at the collapse of economic and political empire), — and which is hard to see getting off the ground even in the longterm even in an all-Britain context (because of a mass of difficult historical circumstances facing fascist revivals generally).

So while any amount of vicious 'Loyalist' backlash is not ruled out, it is the opportunist manoeuvres in Unionist political circles which will be more decisive in how precisely the Agreement works out in the coming months, from the point of view of the traditional orange intransigence and the Tory attempted playing of the Orange card yet again.

But what Trimble & Co are up against is the certainty at the moment that the Agreement is going to go ahead whatever the histrionic posturing of the Trimbles, Paisleys, Donaldsons, Robinsons, etc. The understanding at the moment is that the Agreement has been consciously constructed so that London and Dublin can administratively continue with the implementation of all the governmental effects that were intended, — with or without any of the particular politicians bodies that were to be involved, if any of the politicians are deliberately refusing to cooperate or play their part.

In other words, it is possible for the Agreement to go ahead even without the Assembly or the Assembly Executive functioning quite as planned, (which was the one thing which Unionism so insisted must be a crucial part of the New Agreement, even though the national liberation movement was obviously unenthusiastic about the "another Stormont" aspects of this part of the deal. 

In other words, Trimble & Co are threatening to shoot themselves in both feet, and both knees as well with their current antics, which would indicate short odds on some more Unionist backtracking in the not-too-distant future.

Speculation about whether or not the national liberation movement might encourage some 'gesture' or other towards decommissioning, or some rethinking about how communities should regard the question of their internal discipline, — is far less interesting or important than the demand for 'gestures' itself. What does it mean? It can hardly be regarded as a serious contribution to anything in the context of a long-and-hard-fought-for Agreement ending 800 years of Ireland's struggle for self-determination against English oppression.

Given the remarkable depth and clarity with which the national liberation movement understands all the political processes which have brought things to their present position, it could be speculated that there might not even be any 'gestures' of this kind or any kind, however unimportant they might be considered to be either way.

The reality of the situation can speak for itself. British economic and political imperialism has reached the end of the road historically and has been fought to a standstill politically and militarily by Irish national-liberation. Its Agreement is to give, at last after 800 years, full self-determination back to the people of Ireland. It means dismantling 'Northern Ireland'.

It is not a gesture.

In which case all the talk now of 'gestures' of different kinds is all to do with just saving someone's face somewhere.

In general, this may or may not be without merits sometimes in life, including in serious political questions. And it is certainly the case that British and world imperialism has maintained as a prime aim, throughout the 15-20 years of general latest-phase negotiating, the need to hide at all costs the clear historical implication that armed revolutionary struggle has once again forced imperialists to retreat against all the odds.

But having got all the cover-up gestures it could out of the national liberation struggle at the time of the Agreement's signing, the British imperialist Establishment itself would be into reneging and renegotiating if it was to put its full, weight behind 'new gestures' at this stage.

This remains an unlikely outcome. The declining British imperialist state has been offered peace or war by the national-liberation struggle, and in these circumstances where it cannot win the war and there would be little to be gained even if it could, it has sensibly chosen peace. 

It is unlikely to choose to go back to war just for some further facesaving gesture or two for someone or other: The talk of 'gestures' may end up doing nothing more than record the degenerate shallowness and stupidity of doomed colonial bullying in its final ugly twitching.

As the above Establishment comments have restated, the Agreement to dismantle the old 'Northern Ireland' goes on regardless. Although nothing is being taken for granted given the past deceitfulness and treacherousness of the British police-military dictatorship over the occupied Zone of Ireland, and while there are still many conflicting signs, there is obvious evidence nevertheless that certain significant security relaxations have taken place already and are continuing regularly.

One possible explanation to bear in mind in face of the repeated build-up of renewed tensions over unfulfilled Agreement obligations and provocative threats and speculation such as Trimble frequently plays brinkmanship with, — is a certain style of British imperialist negotiation which makes use of last-minute rushed deals on a mass of details which permit any amount of concessions or compromise to be got away with in all the 11th-hour panicking and all the relief that total breakdown has been avoided. 

The final cover-up of British imperialism's retreat in the face of unbeatable national liberation revolutionary war, registered in the Agreement itself, was hustled through on this basis as months of heavy questioning by the reactionary capitalist press over the prisoners issue, decommissioning, the RUC, the all-Ireland dimensions, etc, etc, were suddenly swept aside in the feverish, detail-rich, last-minute rush of the Agreement's release itself. 

It could be a pattern to be repeated in imperialism's continued wish to conceal from the world the full significance of Ireland's national-liberation victory through armed and political revolutionary struggle led by Sinn Féin and the IRA.

The answer to nearly all vexed questions remains the same, — get the full Agreement for a new Ireland up and running, and all the outstanding matters can start to resolve themselves into whatever new class and national political priorities, perspectives, and structures emerge from this remarkable turning-point in Ireland's (and Britain's — see last weeks Review) history, — the questions of ALL the guns (mostly British imperialist, Orange colonist, or Irish capitalist controlled and used); the questions of social discipline (how will reunifying Ireland fare in the inter-imperialist trade-war and economic collapse holocaust that is coming?); and the questions of religion, culture, language, and education, etc, all to be reassessed by the people of Ireland in the light of the completely new conditions that will begin to prevail and to the background of a rapidly changing world facing insoluble capitalist crisis.

In the long run, of course, there is only a Marxist-Leninist scientific answer to all these problems worldwide. Meanwhile, the anti-imperialist triumph of Sinn Féin and IRA-led national liberation struggle in Ireland continues to provide priceless lessons and give inspiring leadership to the peoples struggles everywhere. 

Build Leninism. Royston Bull

World Revolutionary Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

Equality and fraternity are absolutely incompatible with the laws of the market

[From Fidel Castro's Cuban Socialist Revolution 40th anniversary speech.]

The yesterday's people, illiterate and semi-illiterate, and with really only a minimal political awareness, were capable of making the Revolution, of defending the nation, of subsequently achieving an exceptional political consciousness and initiating a revolutionary process that is unparalleled in this hemisphere and in the world. I do not say that out of any ridiculous chauvinistic spirit, or with the absurd pretension of believing ourselves better than others; I am saying it because, as a result of fate or destiny, the Revolution that was born on that January 1 has been subjected to the hardest trial faced by any revolutionary process in the world.

With the participation of three generations, our heroic people of yesterday and today, our eternal people, have resisted 40 years of aggression, blockade, and economic, political and ideological warfare waged by the strongest and richest imperialist power that has ever existed in the history of the world. The most extraordinary page of glory, and of patriotic and revolutionary determination has been written during these years of the special period, when we were left absolutely alone in the middle of the West, 90 miles from the United States, and we decided to carry on.

NO CAUSE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY ITSELF

Our people aren't any better than other peoples . Their historic greatness is derived from the singular fact of having been put to the test and having been able to withstand it. It's not a great people in and of itself, but rather a people which has made itself great, and its capacity to do so is born out of the greatness of the ideas and the righteousness of the causes it defends. There are no other causes like these, and there have never been. Today it's not a matter of selfishly defending a national cause; in today's world an exclusively national cause cannot be a great cause in and of itself; our world, as a consequence of its own development and historical evolution, is globalizing quickly, unhaltingly and irreversibly. Without abandoning national and cultural identities and even the legitimate interests of the peoples of each country, no cause is more important than global causes, that is, the cause of humanity itself.

Nor is it our fault or our merit that for the people of today and tomorrow, the struggle begun on January 1, 1959, has inexorably turned into a struggle along with other peoples for the interests of all humanity. No country on its own, no matter how big or rich — not to mention a medium-sized or small country — can solve its problems on its own. Only those with limited vision, those who are politically shortsighted or blind, or who are completely devoid of concern and sensitivity toward human destiny, could deny that reality.

But the solutions for humanity will not come from the goodwill of those who rule and exploit the world, even though they can't conceive of anything except what constitutes heaven for them and hell for the rest of humanity, a real and inescapable hell.

The economic order which dominates the planet will inevitably fall. Even a child in school who knows how to add, subtract, multiply and divide well enough to pass an arithmetic test can understand that.

Many take recourse in the infantile practice of calling those who talk about these subjects skeptics, There are even those who dream of establishing colonies on the moon or Mars. I don't blame them for dreaming. Maybe if they achieve that, it will be the place where some can take refuge, if the brutal and growing aggression against our planet is not halted.

The current system is unsustainable because it is based on blind and chaotic laws which. are ruinous and destructive to society and nature.

The very theoreticians of neoliberal globalization, that system's best academics, spokespersons and defenders are unsure, hesitant, contradictory. There are a thousand questions which cannot be answered. It is hypocritical to state that human freedom and the absolute freedom of the market are inseparable concepts, as if laws of this kind, which have emerged from the most selfish, unequal and merciless systems ever known, were compatible with freedom for human beings, who the system has turned into mere commodities.

It would be much more exact to say that without equality and fraternity, which were the sacrosanct watchwords of the bourgeois revolution, there can never be liberty, and that equality and fraternity are absolutely incompatible with the laws of the market.

The tens of millions of children in the world who are forced to work, to prostitute themselves, to supply organs, to sell drugs in order to survive; the hundreds of millions of unemployed, critical poverty, the trafficking of drugs, of immigrants, of human organs, like the colonialism of the past and its dramatic legacy of underdevelopment today, and all of the social calamities in the world today, have arisen from systems based on these laws. It is impossible to forget that the struggle for markets led to the horrific butchery of the two world wars of this century.

We cannot ignore the fact that the principles of the market are an inseparable part of the historic development of humanity, but any rational person would have every right to reject the presumed perpetuation of such social principles as the foundation for the subsequent development of the human species.

The most fanatical defenders of and believers in the market have converted it into a new religion. This is how the theology of the market emerged. Its academics, more than scientists, are theologians; for them, it is a question of faith. Out of respect for the genuine religions practiced honestly by billions of people throughout, the world and out of respect for genuine theologians, we could simply add that the theology. of the market is sectarian, fundamentalist and not ecumenical.

For many other reasons, the current world order is unsustainable. A biotechnologist would say that its genetic map contains numerous genes that lead to its own destruction.

New and unsuspected phenomena are emerging, ones which escape the control of governments and international financial institutions. It is no longer merely a matter of the artificial creation of fabulous wealth with no relation to the real economy. Such is the case of the hundreds of new multimillionaires who have emerged over recent years through the growth in the price of shares on the U.S. stock markets, like a giant balloon that inflates to absurd proportions with the serious risk that it will explode sooner or later. That is what happened in 1929, setting off a deep depression which lasted a decade.

In August of last year, the simple financial crisis in Russia, which produces on 2% of the world's gross domestic product, caused the Dow Jones industrial average, which is the New York stock market's top indicator, to drop 512 points in one day. Panic set in, threatened to cause a consist like that of Southeast Asia in Latin America and thereby seriously threatened the U.S. economy. They have barely been able to hold off disaster until now. The stocks traded on these stock exchanges include the savings and pension funds of 50% of U.S. citizens. At the time of the 1929 crisis, that figure was only 5%, and there were numerous suicides. 

In a globalized world, what happens in any one place has immediate repercussions on the rest of the planet. The recent scare was considerable. The resources of the world's wealthiest countries, summoned together by the United States, were mobilized to head off or attenuate the disaster. Nevertheless,, they want to maintain Russia on the brink of the abyss, and are demanding unnecessarily tough conditions from Brazil. The International Monetary Fund has not moved a millimeter from its fundamentalist principles. The World Bank has rebelled and denounced the situation..

Everyone is talking about an international financial crisis; the only ones who haven't caught on are the citizens of the United States. They are spending more than ever, and their savings are less than zero. They're not concerned that their transnationals invest other people s money. Nor does it matter that the trade deficit continues to grow and has now reached 240 billion. 

They enjoy the privileges of the empire that prints the currency of the world's reserves. The speculators seek refuge in their treasury bonds en masse when there is a crisis. Because the domestic market is large and more money is being spent, the economy appears to be in good shape, although the profits of the corporations have decreased. Mega-mergers, euphoria; stock prices rise once again. They've gone back to playing Russian roulette. Everything will continue to go well eternally. The system's theoreticians have discovered the philosopher's stone. All points of access are intercepted to keep out the ghosts that could destroy the dream. It is no longer impossible to square the circle. There will never be a crisis.

But is the balloon that continues inflating the only threat and the only speculative gamble? Another phenomenon that is reaching ever more fabulous and uncontrollable proportions is that of speculative operations involving currencies. These operations now represent a minimum of a trillion dollars a day, Some claim it to be 1.5 trillion. Scarcely 14 years ago, this figure was only 150 billion dollars a year. There could be confusion regarding the figures. It is difficult to express them, and even more so to translate them from English to Spanish. What we call a billion in Spanish, that is, a million million, is a trillion in North American English.

These language difficulties demonstrate how difficult it is to follow and comprehend the fabulous figures that reflect the degree of speculation in the current world economic order. The immense majority of the world's nations pay for it with the perennial risk of ruin. The slightest carelessness can lead the speculators to attack, devaluating the currency in any one of these nations, and liquidating their hard currency reserves, built up over decades perhaps, in a matter of days. The world order has created the conditions for this. Absolutely no one is or can be safe. The wolves, grouped in packs and aided by computer programs, know where to attack, when to attack and why to attack.

THERE ARE WORDS THAT CANNOT BE PRONOUNCED IN THE TEMPLE OF THE FANATICS OF THE IMPOSED WORLD ORDER 

Fourteen years ago, when this speculation was 2000 times less, a Nobel laureate in economics proposed a 1% tax on every speculative operation of this kind. Today the total that would have been generated through this would be sufficient to develop all of the countries of the Third World. It would be a way of regulating and holding back this harmful speculation. But, regulate? This would clash with the purest fundamentalist doctrine. There are words that cannot be pronounced in the temple of the fanatics of the imposed world order. For example: regulation, public enterprise, economic development program, any minimal form of state planning, influence or participation in the economic area. All of this disturbs the idyllic dream of the free market and private enterprise paradise. Everything should be deregulated, even the labor market. Unemployment benefits should be reduced to the bare minimum, so as not to support "bums" and "freeloaders." The pension system should be restructured and privatized. The state should only concern itself with the police and the army, to maintain order, repress protest and wage war. It is not even permissible for it to participate in any way in the monetary policies of the central bank; this must be absolutely independent.

Apart from the frightful speculation with currencies, there has been an accelerated and unbelievable growth in so-called hedge funds and the derivatives market, another rather new term. I won't try to explain it. It's complicated. It would take a lot of time. I'll simply say that it is an additional system of speculative gambling, another enormous casino where the players bet anything and everything, based on sophisticated risk calculations generated by computers, high-level programmers and economic experts. They exploit insecurity and use the money in the banks' savings accounts. They have practically no restrictions, make huge profits and can provoke disasters.

The fact that the current economic order is unsustainable is evidenced by the very vulnerability and weakness of the system, which has turned the planet into a gigantic casino, and turned millions of citizens and sometimes even entire societies into gamblers, adulterating the function of money and of investments, given that they pursue neither the production nor the growth of the world's wealth, but rather a means to make money with money. Such a deformation will inevitably lead the world economy towards disaster.

A recent incident, which took place in the United States, has been the source of scandal and profound concern. One of the hedge funds that I mentioned and tried to explain in essence, precisely the most famous one in the United States, Long Term Capital Management, which has two Nobel laureates in economy and some of the best computer programmers in the world, and annual profits of over 30%, was on the verge of bankruptcy, which would have had, it would seem, incalculable consequences.

Backed by the prestige it had acquired and depending blindly in the infallibility of its famed programmers and Nobel Prize winners in economics, with a fund of only 4.5 billion dollars, it mobilized funds from 75 different banks, totaling 120 billion dollars, for its speculative operations; that is, it obtained over 25 dollars in savings for every dollar of its own funds. That procedure broke all the parameters and supposed financial practices. The calculations and the programs failed. The losses were considerable; and bankruptcy — which is a dramatic word in this sphere — was inevitable. It was just a matter of days. The U.S. Federal Reserve System went to the rescue of the hedge fund, contradicting all the tenets of the United States and neoliberal philosophy, given that this was considered irresponsible behavior on the part of that kind of institution. According to established principles, the hedge fund had to go bankrupt, the law of the market would teach it a lesson by imposing the relevant corrective. A scandal broke out. The Senate summoned Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; he was called on to make a statement. This senior official, who came from Wall Street, is seen as one of the most expert and eminent figures in the U.S. economy. The principal merit for the current administration's economic success is attributed to him and he is currently enjoying special praise in financial and press circles as the man who halted the stock market crisis in the United States; by lowering interest rates three times in succession. After the president, he is viewed as the most important person in the country. Well, this famous and esteemed chairman of the Federal Reserve System informed the Senate that, if the hedge fund wasn't saved, it would lead to an economic catastrophe which would affect the United States and the entire world.

Where is the solidity of an economic order in which the action, qualified as adventurous and irresponsible, of a speculative institution which possessed a mere 4.5 billion dollars could lead the United States and the world to an economic disaster?

I don't wish to put forward any more arguments. Marry other problems exist within the world economy. The prevailing order flip-flops between inflation, recession, deflation, potential overproduction crises, sustained slumps of basic products. Countries as immensely rich as Saudi Arabia now have budget and trade deficits, even though every day they export eight million barrels of oil. Optimistic growth forecasts are evaporating: No one has the slightest idea of how to solve the problems of the Third World. What capital goods, technology, distribution networks, export credits do they have to seek markets, compete and export? Where are the consumers of their products? How are the resources to be found for health care in Africa, where 22 million HIV-positive persons would require, at current prices, 200 billion dollars every year to control one sole disease? How many will die before a protective vaccine or a medicine is found to eliminate the disease?

HOPEFULLY SOLUTIONS WON'T BE FOUND AS A RESULT OF ECONOMIC CRISES

The world needs some leadership to confront its current realities. There are already six billion inhabitants on this planet. It is virtually certain that in just 50 years' time there will be 9.5 billion. Guaranteeing food, health care, education, employment, clothing, footwear, homes, drinking water, electricity and transportation for such an extraordinary number of persons who will be living precisely in the poorest countries will be a colossal challenge. First, consumption standards will have to be defined. We cannot continue introducing the tastes and ways of life inspired by the industrialized societies' wasteful model, which would be suicidal in addition to being impossible.

The world's development must be programmed. That task cannot remain in the hands of the transnationals and left up to the blind and chaotic laws of the market.

Hopefully solutions won't be found as a result of economic crises. Billions of people in the Third World would be affected. An elemental awareness of the technological realities arid the destructive power of modern weapons obliges us to think about the duty to prevent the inevitable conflicts of interest from leading to bloody wars.

The existence of a single superpower, of a global and asphyxiating economic order, makes it, difficult — perhaps impossible — for even a revolution such as ours to survive if it had been born today instead of when it could count on a source of support, in a world which was then bipolar. Because of that support, our country had the necessary time to develop an invincible capacity for resistance and to make known, in the international arena, the strong influence of its example and heroism, in order to carry out a great battle of ideas in all forums.

Peoples will keep on struggling, the masses will play an important and decisive role in those struggles, which in essence will be their response to the poverty and suffering to which they have been subjected, and thousands of creative and ingenious forms of pressure and political action will emerge. Many governments will be destabilized by economic crises and the absence of solutions within the established international economic system.

We are living though a stage in which events move more quickly than consciousness of the realities under which we suffer. We must sow ideas arid unmask deceit, sophism and hypocrisy, using methods and means which counteract the disinformation and institutionalized lies. The experience of 40 years. of slander falling upon Cuba like torrential rain has taught us to trust the people's instincts and intelligence.

Soros, a well-known personality in the world of finance, and his group, in a speculative assault, brought Britain to its knees, despite the fact that Britain was once the head of a great empire, the undisputed queen of finances and the former ruler of the world's reserve currency, a role now played by the dollar and the United States.

The franc, peseta and lira also suffered the damage wrought by speculation. The dollar and the euro are keeping watch over one another. The dollar now faces a prospective adversary. The United States is anxiously wagering that the new currency will struggle and fail. We are keeping a close eye on events.

Anguish, uncertainty and doubt lead some to seek out eclectic alternatives.. The world, nevertheless, has no other alternative to neoliberal globalization, which is dehumanizing, morally and socially indefensible, and ecologically and economically unsustainable, than a fair distribution of the riches that human beings are capable of creating with their dedicated labor and fertile intelligence. May there be an end to the tyranny of an order that imposes blind, anarchic and chaotic principles, that is leading the human species towards the abyss. May nature be saved. May national identities be preserved, and the cultures of all nations protected. May equality, fraternity; and with them, true liberty, prevail.. The unfathomable differences between the rich and poor within each country and between countries cannot continue growing. They must, on the contrary, progressively diminish until they disappear someday. May differences be determined by merit, capacity, creative spirit, and what each  individual actually contributes to the welfare of humanity, as opposed to theft, speculation, and the. exploitation of the weakest. May humanism be genuinely practiced, with concrete actions, and not hypocritical slogans.

The nation that is waging the heroic battle of the special period to save the homeland, the Revolution and the conquests of socialism is advancing irrepressibly towards its goals, in the same way that the fighters led by Camilo and Che advanced from the Sierra Maestra to the Escambray. As Melia said, the future must always be better. Let's confirm this with the goals we have set ourselves for 1999. Let's consolidate and strengthen, work, struggle and fight with the spirit with which our heroic compatriots fought in Uvero, in the glorious days of the major enemy offensive, in the battles and the events we have recalled today. We have left behind the setback in Alegria de Pio, we have passed through Cinco Palmas, we have gathered forces, and now we are capable of triumph, just as 300 triumphed over 10,000; we are. now much stronger, and certain of victory. (APPLAUSE)

To all of our compatriots, and especially the young, I assure you that the next 40 years will be decisive young, the world. Before you there are tasks that are incomparably more complex and difficult. New glorious goals await you; the honor of being Cuban revolutionaries demands it. We will struggle for our nation and for humanity. And our voice can reach and will reach very far away.

Today's struggle is tough and difficult. In the ideological war, as in armed battles, there are also casualties. Not everyone has the courage to withstand these tough times and difficult conditions.

I was recalling today that in the midst of the war, in the midst of the bombings and countless deprivations, of all the young, volunteers who entered the school, one in ten was able to withstand it; but that one was worth ten, a hundred, a thousand: By strengthening awareness, forming character, educating the young in the difficult school of life in our era, sowing solid ideas, using arguments that are irrefutable, preaching through example and trusting in the honor of humankind, we can ensure that for every ten, nine remain in their battle posts alongside the flag, the Revolution and the homeland. (APPLAUSE)

World Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles)

The foul contemporary record of British colonial torture in modern Ireland.

For over 30 years the British government has presided directly over the systematic ill-treatment and torture of Irish people within the North of Ireland. The techniques employed and the specific political agenda for which they were employed changed over time, but the horror and suffering of the ordinary people whose repression Britain demanded, remained the same.

Out of a population of 600,000 northern nationalists, hundreds of thousands of people have been raided, arrested and detained, yet only a handful of their stories has ever been told. As the Patten Commission considers the future of the RUC, An Phoblacht considers the experience of detainees in the Six Counties.

In his book State Violence Fr Raymond Murray identifies 1971 as a watershed in his life. "Political prisoners who had been ill-treated and tortured in Palace Barracks and Girdwood Park Barracks were imprisoned in Armagh Jail where I was chaplain. I saw the horrific marks on their bodies. I experienced the blatant cover-up of this illegal and immoral behaviour. Directly and indirectly, the army, police, doctors, civil administration and government were ail involved in this criminal action."

For most northern nationalists, the systematic ill-treatment and torture of detainees began with internment. In a trawl for information, internees were subjected to sustained brutalisation. carried out by British soldiers, culminating in the ordeal of the "hooded" men:  a form of interrogation it which brutal beatings were supplemented with sensory deprivation in which the victim was denied sleep, food and water, forced to stand spreadeagled against a wall, hooded and subjected to 'white noise'.

By 1973, with the introduction of Diplock non-jury courts, the central arena of torture shifted from British Army barracks into RUC interrogation centres. The sanction of convictions based on forced confessions became the driving force behind brutal interrogations in centres throughout the Six Counties but most notoriously, in Castlereagh. In almost 30 years since the introduction of Diplock courts over 10,000 northern nationalists have been subjected to the conveyor belt 'justice' of brutal interrogations, forced confessions and arbitrary conviction in non jury courts.

In 1976, a secret directive by the then RUC Chief Kenneth Newman gave interrogators a virtual license to torture. Within less than a year, thousands of nationalists were being arrested and interrogated in detention centres, with over 1,700 subsequently convicted.

Acquittal rates dropped from over a half to a third of cases try 1981. Over 90% of defendants appearing in Diplock courts had 'confessions' against them. In almost 80% of all cases prosecution evidence relied solely on forced 'confession' evidence.

But by 1977 information about ill-treatment was already beginning to leak into the public arena.

On 2 March 1977 the BBC screened a special Tonight programme on interrogation methods in the Six Counties.

Bernard O'Connor, a school teacher from Enniskillen, was one of two detainees interviewed by the programme makers. During a four-day ordeal O'Connor was repeatedly beaten, humiliated and choked into unconsciousness. He described being kicked, punched and made to do press-ups; "Finally they decided that it might be even better if I took off my clothes. So I was told to take my trousers off. They then told me to take my underpants off. They then told me to take the rest of my clothes off and I did so, leaving me naked... The tracksuit top which I was wearing was taken off me and put down over my head... with the arms tied around my neck. My nose was closed off with their fingers and my mouth sealed by another hand. I couldn't breathe. I heard the older man say 'Choke the bastard'."

The programme concluded that medical evidence was consistent with O'Connor's description of ill treatment.

In January 1978 the British 	government was found guilty of violating Article 3 of the European Court of Human Rights on two counts. A report by Amnesty International detailed "maltreatment of suspected terrorists by the RUC" and called for a public inquiry. The volume of evidence became so great that two RUC doctors felt compelled to resign. In March 1979 Robert Irwin, Belfast's forensic medical officer refuted claims by RUC Chief Newman that injuries sustained by detainees were self-inflicted. Irwin threatened to reveal the records of 160 detainees ill treated in RUC interrogation centres.

Two days later the British government published its own Bennett Report, a partial admission of the truth but the torture continued. By the 1980s the RUC had perfected torture which "left no marks".

In February 1988 Brian Gillen, one of 16 men detained during raids in Belfast, was the subject of a writ of Habeas Corpus following medical evidence of severe ill treatment.

On release, Brian was to give a graphic account of his experience. It was an experience which would be echoed time and time again by other detainees in the years that followed. A clear pattern of the new torture techniques being deployed by the RUC began to emerge. One detainee described his ordeal. "One of them would slap me hard on the back of the head just around the base of the skull. He would keep this up for long periods. After several minutes of this treatment you get a bursting headache. They would slap you with their palms on both ears at the same time. This left you with ringing sound in your ears."

For women detainees, brutalisation was often compounded with sexual abuse.

In June 1991 Geraldine O'Connor was arrested and taken to Castlereagh. "One put his elbow on my thigh and the elbow went up my leg to the groin. He was rubbing his nose against my nose, putting his arm around me and settling his head on my shoulder. The other man was rubbing his hands up and down my thighs and asking me did it turn me on. In another interview the RUC man squeezed my lips and kissed me: 'Do you fancy a quickie even though she is so ugly?' he said."

By the early 1990s the RUC were specifically targeting young people. "They were the worst five days of my life, there were times I thought they were going to kill me and times I wished I was dead," recounted one teenager. In August 1991 young people in the Beechmount, Ballymurphy and St James areas of West Belfast were arrested and brutalised during interrogation.

Margaret Morgan described her son's ordeal. "James was interrogated for hours at a time by teams of RUC members. He was repeatedly beaten and kicked. He was humiliated, degraded and sexually assaulted. James was repeatedly slapped on the back of the head. I saw James five days after he was taken from the house. I hardly recognised him, he looked so bad. He was very blue and could hardly walk. He just didn't look like my child."

Nineteen-year-old James Morgan later collapsed in his cell. He was left to lie in his own excrement for two days before being taken to hospital where he was considered so seriously-ill that he was given the Last Rites.

One group of detainees whose experiences have been ignored is those placed under house, or room arrest during raids by the British army and RUC.

Detention is within the detainee's home and the duration of the arrest is relatively short, usually a matter of hours rather than days, but the impact of what is often a traumatic ordeal can last for months, even years. 

In the last 30 years hundreds of thousands of nationalist families have been placed under house arrest during raids. In one four month period in the late 1980s over 6,000 nationalist homes were raided.

A raid is a violent violation of a space most usually associated as a place of safety. For many children, it is the ultimate erosion of their sense of security. Those held during raids not only suffer the psychological trauma of watching the destruction of their personal property but often endure violent assault and verbal abuse as well.

Jacqueline Donnelly was in the bath when in November 1989 a raiding party smashed through the front windows and doors of her mother's home. "I heard my daughter screaming from the bathroom. She... managed to pull a shirt on before the door was kicked in. She was kicked, punched and thrown downstairs. She had given birth only 14 days earlier and they kicked her so hard in the stomach her pelvic bone was badly bruised and she needed hospital treatment."

Detention during a raid is often accompanied by malicious acts of cruelty by the raiders. During a particularly vindictive raid in April 1990 on the Andersonstown home of Lucy Murray, the raiding party mutilated and killed two pet rabbits in front of three children. The rabbits were kicked to and fro as members of the raiding party played 'football' until the animals died.

A year after the raid, Lucy's youngest child, three-year-old Niamh, was still traumatised.

By the early 1990s the ill treatment and torture of detainees was once again hitting the headlines aid attracting the attention of human rights organisations, most notably Amnesty International. In the summer of 1991 Amnesty published a special report on the British government's abuse of human rights in the Six Counties, citing a number of specific cases of ill-treatment and torture of detainees. Within a month of the report, Amnesty was to take the unprecedented step of issuing an International Urgent Order to protect p young Belfast teenager, Damien Austin, who had suffered severs mental and physical abuse in Castlereagh.

Helsinki Watch repeated allegations that physical ill treatment during in interrogation in the north of Ireland was widespread.

A group of British lawyers went even further. A report by the Haldane Society identified nine specific techniques of ill-treatment and concluded torture during interrogation was being systematically employed and not "as the British government claims simply due to the misconduct of a few rogue RUC interrogators".

In November 1991 the British were summoned to appear before the United Nations Committee against Torture to answer serious allegations lodged by Amnesty International and the Six-County based Committee for the Administration of Justice. Only a year before Britain had been forced to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights.

In 1994 the British sent a team of top civil servants to answer further allegations of ill-treatment and torture at the UN. The committee remained unimpressed and ordered the closure of Castlereagh, immediate access to legal representation for detainees and the video recording of interrogations. The British government declined but the pressure continues. At a UN hearing earlier this year the British government again faced international condemnation on its record of treatment of detainees in the North of Ireland. 

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark the occasion British television screened, "In the Name of the Father", the story of the arrest, brutal interrogation and false conviction of the Guildford Four. The screening was a small recognition of the suffering inflicted on Irish people by the British state over the past 30 years.