(Forwarded) To: The Irish Republican Socialist Party The All-African People's Revolutionary Party, and its women's wing, the All-African Women's Revolutionary Union, congratulates and salutes the Irish Republican Socialist Party on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Irish Prisoners of War's refusal to eat food provided by an illegal, immoral and fascist English colonial government that created and maintained a colonial/neo-colonial situation in Ireland for over 500 years. This anniversary of the heroic position taken by the brave Irish Republican Socialist Prisoners of War and Martyrs, who exemplified the best of our revolutionary allies and comrades, must be celebrated by all. Our relationships with Ireland and the Irish People are as old as our people and our principals, and pre-date us. As Africans, who unconditionally affirm the primacy of Africa, we principally understand that: � Frederick Douglas, said after a visit to Ireland. 'They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondsman, makes it impossible for me not to sympathize with the oppressed of all lands.'1 � Marcus Garvey supported the Irish struggle for liberation. In 1921 his Universal Negro Improvement Association in New York City, resolved to send expressions of support to "Eamon de Valera, in his fight for Irish independence; and ... stating that nothing would please the Negro peoples more (except the freedom of Africa) than the emancipation of Ireland, India and Egypt'.2 � Bernadette McAliskey (then Devlin) found out when she visited the US in the early 1970's that 'I was not very long there until, like water, I found my own level. 'My people' - the people who know about oppression, discrimination, prejudice, poverty and the frustration and despair that they produce - were not Irish Americans. They were black, Puerto Rican, Chicano. And those who were supposed to be 'my people', the Irish Americans who know about English mis-rule and the Famine and supported the civil-rights movement at home, and knew that Partition and England were the cause of the problem, looked and sounded to me like Orangemen. They said exactly the same things about blacks that the loyalists said about us at home. In New York, I was given the key to the city by the mayor, an honour not to be sneezed at. I gave it to the Black Panthers.'3 African People, and the A-APRP, have long supported the struggle of the Irish people, their movements, and organizations. In turn, the People of Ireland and their representative movements/ and organizations have supported the struggle, movements and organizations of the African people. There are too many examples of this fact to illustrate here. Our support is also based on the principles of Nkrumahism-Tureism and its understanding of scientific socialism. We know that by supporting and strengthening the world socialist movement, we increase the potential for the victory of Pan-Africanism, Socialism and World Peace. --------------------------------------------------------------------<e|-
