A crowd gathered outside of Queen’s University in Belfast on Monday (17th April 2023) to protest the presence of war criminals Hillary and Bill Clinton in Ireland.
Speakers included Aindriú Mac Ruaidhrí of Lasair Dhearg, Sarah Sonner of the Connolly Youth Movement and Cuban activist Yas Rodriguez.
Aindriú said:
“Friends and comrades, today’s gathering has been organised by both Lasair Dhearg and the Connolly Youth Movement. My name is Andrew Rogers and I’m an organiser and member of Lasair Dhearg here in Belfast.
There are many people here today from a number of different organisations and none, and we have all been brought together with a singular purpose: To highlight the peace-washing of war criminals and to state emphatically that those war criminals, the guiding hands of global imperialism, alongside many others, are not welcome in Ireland!
As we stand here, holed up in that building behind us, are two senior members of the United States of America’s imperialist war machine – Hillary and Bill Clinton. The former a US presidential candidate and former secretary of state. The latter, a former President of that same global empire.
Between them, they have personally stood over the extraction of resources and capital from nation-states across this earth, overseeing the imposition of the American petro-dollar and the foisting of capitalist economics on unwilling peoples through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Alongside many other war crimes, in the same year as the signing of the good Friday agreement, Bill Clinton bombed both Afghanistan and Sudan, it is said, ending the production of almost half of Sudanese medicines production, one of the poorest nations in the world, whilst overseeing US imperialist objectives.
In 2002, Hillary Clinton, then Senator for New York, gave her support for the US invasion of Iraq. A decision, based on lies, that cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives.
The Clintons, alongside many other participants in their global imperialist cabal (said k’bal), are here to take part in an event to mark 25 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
They are here to be paraded in front of all of us as modern day St Patrick’s, who drove violence from Ireland in 1998. What irony is this, that two individuals, who delivered death and destruction across the globe via their weapons of war, should be assembled before us with all the pomp, ceremony and garb of the institutions of the state as part of a supposed ‘process of peace’.
This so-called ‘peace’ is being utilised by the institutions of state to wash away the sins of Hillary and Bill Clinton. But what use is this if they themselves do not seek repentance?
What we are witnessing is ‘peace-washing’. And what exactly do we mean by ‘peace washing? Well, the powers that be seek to use the attempt to end imperialist conflict here in Ireland 25 years ago as a means to humanise those responsible for in-human acts.
I’d you ever wanted a visual representation of the realities of the Good Friday Agreement then consider us standing here today. A gathering of anti Imperialists on the street, while the Imperialists sit behind locked doors behind us.
The Good Friday Agreement was never about ending violence. It was only ever about ending violence directed at the state. For the violence of poverty – the violence of homelessness – the violence of conflict-related trauma, mentally illness and suicide continues unabated. The state cared only about ending the violence that it experienced and cared not one bit about the violence suffered day and daily by the people and inflicted upon us by the capitalist economic system they imposed in Ireland! Where is our ‘peace process’?
Significantly more have died from suicide since 1998 than died as a result of the three decades of war before it. Where is their peace process?!
The Six Counties, per capita, is now the most dangerous place in Europe for women. Where exactly is their peace process?!
It is absolutely no coincidence that, since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Six Counties has become a haven for global capitalism. It is no coincidence either that house prices have more than doubled, and with it, rents have sky rocketed alongside a burgeoning landlord class. Neither is it a coincidence that the Six County state is now heavily involved in the mass production of weapons of war and other materials for sale and supply to imperialist armies across the globe.
Stormont government bodies have in recent years gone as far as compiling documentation to be distributed to those who would seek to benefit from the Six Counties role in weapons production and the manufacture of war materials. Invest NI, the producers of this documentation, provide significant detail of the capabilities of the state when it comes to production for war.
Whether it is ship building for Britain’s ministry of defence, missile production for Britain’s war machine, or the development and manufacture of chipsets and guidance systems for weapons systems, the Six Counties capabilities when it comes to the production of war materials is now the envy of many other states worldwide. And that’s before we talk about unmanned drones, composite materials and software.
Indeed, an unending web of defence contractors wrapped up in the supply and manufacture of war materials spans these Six Counties. Those materials, produced on occupied territory, are then supplied for use in global conflicts by militaries with long histories of human rights abuses.
It is without doubt that the Six Counties has witnessed significant economic growth since the Good Friday Agreement. All the leading economists say so. Indeed, recent reports suggest that GDP, a measure of goods and services in the state, has more than doubled since 1998.
Some of those leading economists have also stated that this growth has not benefitted everyone. And this is borne out by the fact that before the cost of living crisis kicked in, over 300,000 across the state were now living in poverty. That’s 1 in 5 people, and not a significant change since the signing of the Agreement. Over 100,000 of them are children.
Examining these facts, we better understand what the Good Friday Agreement was aimed at achieving. It was an attempt by the British state to end violence directed toward its presence in Ireland. The GFA would create a scenario where British businesses would benefit from a highly educated workforce at significantly lower overheads. The Housing market would develop, transferring significant public housing resources into private hands alongside a new landlord class. Finance capital would flood the state, yielding greater profits from investment portfolios. The Six County state would become a global P.O. Box for international conglomerates, an effective banana Republic of sorts, allowing the washing of great streams of money with low taxation. Huge amounts of state investment in infrastructure and private enterprise would help create this dream scenario.
Capitalism got everything it needed from the Good Friday Agreement. The rest of us would have to fight tooth and nail to survive the barren landscape it left in its wake.
We who suffer the daily violence of the capitalist society that they have foisted upon us have been set aside from the process, because we were never a part of it anyway.
And so this so-called ‘peace process’ does not belong to us. So let them have it. If they want to use this ‘peace process’ as a means to peace-wash war criminals then that is what they will do.
Standing outside of that process, we will chart a different path. And on that path we will stand where we have always stood, on the side of the oppressed peoples of this world! – on the side of justice! – on the side of National Liberation! – and on the side of the coming Socialist Republics that will bring an end imperialism!
Belfast says no to war criminals!
Ireland says no to war criminals!
B’eirigi bua!”
ENDS
