Firstly, as an ex-political prisoner who has served a total of 18 years in prison from 1975 until 1993, I would like to thank the organizers of this symposium for the privilege to address this forum where there are so many delegates throughout the world representing anti-fascist political prisoners. As someone who has experienced every aspect of prison life during the present conflict in Ireland which included physical and psychological torture, long and regular periods of solitary confinement, forced starvation diets and various protests including a 50 day hunger strike when I was 20 years of age I feel a great affinity with all political prisoners throughout the world. But I am not here to speak of my personal account of imprisonment as my experiences were just typical of what so many others went through.

The isolation of political prisoners is nothing new to people who know what it is like to live under political oppression. In Ireland the British have used this tactic for hundreds of years with the sole purpose of not just breaking the spirits of captured freedom fighters and their families but to break the spirit of the overall struggle itself.

Prison struggles have been part and parcel of republicanism since the imprisonment and death of Wolfe Tone in 1798. It was in his prison cell 200 years ago that Robert Emmett composed one of the finest speeches ever culminating in his rallying call that "until Ireland takes her place among the nations of the world then and only then let my epitaph be written." The members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, imprisoned in England during the latter part of the 19th century, were treated dreadfully by the British, they were systematically tortured both physically and psychologically and endured years of solitary confinement, hunger strikes, forced starvation diets and complete isolation from their families and indeed from the outside world resulting in some of the prisoners going insane from their treatment. Irish political prisoners never flinched from the struggle for political recognition of their cause over the centuries. However Britain, too, has never flinched from using prison isolation and torture over the centuries until the present day in order to break the spirit of the prisoners and the struggle itself.

The struggle against criminalisation waged by Irish republican and republican socialist prisoners of war is among the most heroic battles in the course of the recent national liberation struggle in Ireland. For many years, republican and republican socialist prisoners fought for their identity as prisoners of war against Britain's criminalisation policy. This policy was not just an attempt to criminalize the prisoners themselves but an attempt to criminalize the struggle for national liberation in Ireland. Republican prisoners have a long and honorable history of fighting back against the British within the prisons for centuries. During this phase of the national liberation struggle they embarked on the blanket protest, which led to the no-wash protest and eventually the hunger strike itself. The hunger strikers sacrifice smashed the British criminalization policy and convinced the world of the legitimacy of our struggle. When we speak of isolation, we in Ireland recall that for much of the early years of this protracted campaign, the prisoners fought this battle without the knowledge of the outside world. In all these prison protests the Republican Socialist prisoners participated fully and three of our volunteers, Patsy O Hara, Kevin Lynch and Mickey Devine, gave their lives on hunger strike.

Living in the most horrendous conditions imaginable, they were forced to rely initially on themselves alone. The policy of isolation within the prison system in Ireland did not last long due to the swelling upsurge of captured freedom fighters. Protesting prisoners were confined to separate Blocks yet were forced to remain in their cell 24 hours a day every day for years without clothes, reading materials, no exercise and no washing facilities forcing prisoners to smear their cells with their own excrement and urine. Some prisoners never received family visits for five years. Prisoner's relatives were galvanised into action, laying the foundation for the National H-Block/Armagh Committee. The RSM recognised the importance of this fight early on, becoming active participants in the Relatives Action Committees and then the National H-Block/Armagh Committee at a time when other republicans were still perceiving this campaign as largely a distraction. With all other options having been exhausted, the volunteers of the Irish National Liberation Army and Irish Republican Army were forced, in 1980 to turn to the last option of hunger strike as a means of carrying the struggle for justice forward. When the prisoners embarked upon that course, their struggle burst into the awareness of the broader society of Ireland and it became impossible to miss the reality that the struggle against criminalisation was, in fact, the most basic defense of the fight for national liberation. From the near isolation of the blanket protest and dirty protest, the issue of criminalisation was taken up by people throughout Ireland's 32-counties, convinced of the righteousness of the prisoners struggle by the unmistakably compelling evidence created by the prisoners own bodies. Their bodies were transformed both into graphic argument in support of their cause, as well as into weapons of the long war, and with them they brought the masses onto the streets in protest and refocused the eyes of all Ireland, and what is more, of the whole world, on the partition of Ireland and continued occupation of six Irish counties by British Imperialism.

The hunger strikers were kept isolated from the rest of the prison population and the British used the Catholic Church in an attempt to isolate the families of the prisoners from the hunger strike protest and their cause. The hunger strike and the deaths that accompanied it again riveted the eyes of the world on Ireland. So eloquent was the statement of the hunger strikers protest, it easily translated itself into the many languages of the globe. The hunger strikers, armed only with their naked bodies defeated the might of the British Empires criminalization policy.

Meanwhile it was a different matter in England where Irish political prisoners, due to the fact that their numbers were small in comparison to the overall English prison population, were kept totally isolated. Britain ignored their own legislation stating that prisoners should be kept in a prison as close as possible to their families. They ignored their own legislation in order to isolate, demean, demoralize and indeed torture political prisoners. This treatment was intended to act as a deterrent to other freedom fighters from attacking England itself. Not only did Britain attack our prisoners but they also attacked our families through a variety of means. When the families of prisoners held in England went on the long distance trips to visit their loved ones they were often told that the prisoner was moved to another prison several hundred miles away. And often as not when arriving at the other prison they were informed that the prisoner had once again been moved.

However the prisoners in England did overcome many of the Draconian measures used against them but only after decades of protests, riots, years of solitary confinement and hunger strikes to the death. The prison guards used the ordinary criminal prisoners to also brutalise political prisoners in the early to mid seventies. However the willingness of Irish political prisoners to fight the prison system in England against all odds with great dedication and courage so impressed the ordinary criminal prisoners that many of them joined forces with republicans in protests, riots, years of solitary confinement and hunger strikes. To this day Britain continues to isolate Irish political prisoners from each other by dispersing them throughout various English jails. The British at present are now rushing new legislation through the English House of Lords which will enable them to disperse political prisoners captured in the North of Ireland to prisons in England isolating them from their families and friends.

Despite the victory achieved by the deaths of three INLA prisoners and seven IRA prisoners when political status was granted in everything but name the INLA were forced once again to fight for their political identity. The Provisional Republican Movement in the mid eighties embarked upon a campaign of undermining and criminalizing our prisoners with a view of absorbing our members into their own ranks. They also attempted to totally demoralize republican socialist prisoners who refused to succumb to their campaign of criminalization. They refused to recognize our structures, refused to allow us any say in the prison, refused transport to our families and barely tolerated our presence in the Blocks despite some of our prisoners having died to achieve what we had. The sole purpose of this strategy was to force RSM prisoners to give up their political identity and come under the authority of the IRA. The IRA were now doing what the British government had attempted to do with all republicans, criminalize, demonise, undermine, demoralize and isolate the RSM.

Towards the end of 1988, the Republican Socialist prisoners took the decision to leave the provisional republican blocks and fight for their own block. This decision was not taken lightly nor was it taken alone but together with non-aligned political prisoners and the League for Communist Republicans.

After much discussion amongst themselves and with other prisoners who were experiencing the same hostility they decided that they had no alternative but to leave the provisional republican wings. All the prisoners for transfer were put into H-Block 6. It was decided not to make this public at the time, as we did not want opportunistic elements on the outside, particularly the British, to use this as a means of undermining the struggle as a whole. Leaving the blocks was not done in order to undermine the republican structure nor to undermine the struggle, but to assert the right of political prisoners to their own political identity. This development completed a long battle waged against isolation of our prisoners within the general prison population and it transformed the experience of republican socialist POWs. Until recently that is. Now we face that battle all over again in the prisons of the six county statelet of occupied Ireland.

The signing of the so called Good Friday Agreement brought about the release of the majority of political prisoners. It also brought about the ending of political recognition of any further political prisoners charged with any offense committed after May 1998. The British felt free to deny anti-Good Friday Agreement republican prisoners the rights that the hunger strikers had achieved and once again republican prisoners embarked on protests which led to the use of widespread isolation and solitary confinement. Despite the small victory of separation/segregation from members of pro-British death squad prisoners the struggle for political recognition and a restoration of political rights that they once enjoyed continues. The prisoners small victory this year against all odds is a reflection of their courage, resilience and commitment to the cause of national liberation.

The RSM fully supported the struggle that was waged for the right of the republican prisoners in Maghaberry to segregation. We clearly recognised that they are political prisoners involved in a legitimate form of protest within the jail. Those of us who have been prisoners of war ourselves understand the frustrations that have driven the prisoners to undertake a dirty protest. While segregation has been granted, political status remains to be won. It is all the more bitter, therefore, that having commemorated the struggle and sacrifice of the 1980 and 1981 hunger strikers just two years ago, we do so with the recognition that the political status they suffered and died to win are gone. That this hard won objective was traded away as part of the empty promises known as the Good Friday Agreement is nothing short of criminal.

It was this experience with prisoner isolation and their struggle in response to it that led the RSM to support the prisoners of the DHKC and other Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries in the prisons of Turkey. In all, there were hundreds of prisoners on hunger strike in the prisons of Turkey, seeking the same freedom of assembly that Irish revolutionaries gave their lives for in 1981. We salute the courage and dedication of our Turkish comrades and wish them a speedy victory. Let today's republican prisoners take inspiration from our comrades in Turkey.

Moving on to another contemporary prison struggle in Ireland. To date Dessie OHare an INLA prisoner has spent over 23 years in gaol. He and his family have suffered greatly at the hands of the Lackeys in government in the so called Irish Republic. However, under strand three of the 'Good Friday Agreement' it states that all prisoners whose organisations are on ceasefire will benefit from the early release scheme. Dessie is a recognised Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoner of war.

Therefore, as the INLA is an organisation that is currently on ceasefire, Dessie O Hare should benefit from the early release scheme, a scheme that is afforded to all other political prisoners who qualify. Dessie O Hare, the sole prisoner entitled to release under the terms of the GFA is still being incarcerated. The Irish RSM call upon the 26-County administration to immediately release Dessie O Hare from incarceration as outlined under the Good Friday Agreement.

Last year, a spokesperson for the RSM said of the incarcerated PFLP leader:

"Ahmad Saadat is the Dessie O Hare of Palestine. The Palestinian Supreme Court has found Saadat guilty of no crime and ordered his release. In both cases, the courts have ruled that they should be released and in both cases a government disregards its own courts and manufactures excuses for continuing to incarcerate someone on purely political grounds, displaying absolute disregard for human rights and justice."

Once again, our own experience with the prison struggle laid the foundation for our solidarity. We in the Irish RSM joined in demanding the immediate release of Ahmad Saadat and called upon the Palestinian Authority to demonstrate their respect for the independence of their judiciary by abiding by its ruling to release Saadat. Saadat's only crime is his continued opposition to the Zionist state, much as Dessie O Hare is being unfairly treated because of the RSM's continued opposition to the Good Friday Agreement.

In like manner, the RSM has extended its solidarity to Chilean prisoners of war, Puerto Rican POWs, Basque political prisoners, Breton political prisoners, political prisoners in Peru, in the United States, and around the globe. And, that is why we join you here today. Each of us here, if we have had the experience of isolation, criminalisation, torture, abuse, and dehumanisation through the prison systems in our own nations, cannot look upon the struggles of others elsewhere in the world against similar evils and remain unmoved. And so, in conclusion, we in the Irish RSM join with you all in demanding an end to the isolation of political prisoners and prisoners of war.

In unity, let us find strength. Through that strength, let us find victory! Long live the solidarity of those who struggle for justice!

STATEMENTS ENDS