This month the US Guantanamo Prison Camp will be in existence 6 years. To mark this macabre anniversary and to highlight the Irish government s complicity in Washington s extraordinary rendition programme, i.e. in the kidnapping, torturing and even killing of people, Galway Alliance Against War intends to hold a public rally at Liam Mellows statue on Eyre Square at 1.30pm on Saturday 26th January. GAAW hopes to have a former Guantanamo inmate as one of the speakers as well as a number of local public representatives.
If the striped uniform of the Nazi concentration camps is one of the symbols of the depths of inhumanity in the 20th century, then surely the orange boiler suits of Guantanamo portray a similar message for this new century. As an act of solidarity with the prisoners of Guantanamo and in opposition to CIA torture planes being allowed to use Shannon Airport, Liam Mellows will for this Saturday event don the orange prison garb of this infamous camp.
This month the US Guantanamo Prison Camp will be in existence 6 years. To mark this macabre anniversary and to highlight the Irish government s complicity in Washington s extraordinary rendition programme, i.e. in the kidnapping, torturing and even killing of people, Galway Alliance Against War intends to hold a public rally at Liam Mellows statue on Eyre Square at 1.30pm on Saturday 26th January. GAAW hopes to have a former Guantanamo inmate as one of the speakers as well as a number of local public representatives.
If the striped uniform of the Nazi concentration camps is one of the symbols of the depths of inhumanity in the 20th century, then surely the orange boiler suits of Guantanamo portray a similar message for this new century. As an act of solidarity with the prisoners of Guantanamo and in opposition to CIA torture planes being allowed to use Shannon Airport, Liam Mellows will for this Saturday event don the orange prison garb of this infamous camp.
No doubt there will be cries of desecration from some outraged Fianna Failers. But we should pay no heed. Liam Mellows gave his life opposing the superpower of his day. If alive he would be appalled at the subservience of an Irish government to another imperialist superpower. Indeed, in the last letter to his mother, hours before his execution, he used the very term Imperialist England as he urged that his brother Barney should persevere until the wrong is righted and the shadow of shame is lifted from our country. Today, we have another shadow of shame that can be seen on a daily basis as Shannon airport is used as an aircraft carrier for US forces en route to war and CIA torture flights with an unknown cargo.
There is no question; Liam Mellows the anti-imperialist would be on our side.
