The Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP) made a joint appeal for the Irish Diaspora in North America to support Black Liberation, at an Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia press conference that took place in Moscow on September 17-21, 2015.
Comrade Micheál MacLochlainn of the IRSP stated, “In 1982 Chairman Omali Yeshitela, of the African Peoples Socialist Party, travelled to Belfast to release a joint appeal, with the IRSP, to Irish America, calling for unqualified support for Black Liberation.
“During this press conference in 1982, the IRSP stated that our organization will not accept any financial donations from any Irish American organizations that do not openly give support to Black Liberation and National Liberation and Socialism in Ireland, and Africa.”
Comrade MacLochlainn continues, “Irish and Africans are united in our shared experience of oppression by white power. Both our peoples have been traded by the capitalist establishment as commodities, not like contemporary wage slaves, or debt slaves, but an entirely different type of slavery.
“Our shared experiences with oppression have led to physical, cultural and economic slavery. We were not chained to the capitalist system. Historically, our men women and children were physically chained and sold for profit by it.”
Comrade MacLochlainn finishes, “We are proud to announce the old ties and relationships between the African struggle and the Irish struggle against oppression have been reunited by the links re-forged by the IRSP and APSP.
“We call for a total withdrawal of all heavily armed American State Paramilitary police forces from African communities in North America, and an immediate end to all political policing of African communities in North American.
“We support the calls for immediate reparations by the current British and American establishments to the oppressed Irish and African peoples. Though we also accept that even if we built gallows and hanged the entire British Monarchy and Capitalist British and American 1percent, it still would not be compensation enough for the crimes committed, and currently being carried out, against our peoples. Smash White Power!”
Chairman Omali Yeshitela with IRSP Chairman Jimmy Browne in Belfast, Ireland in March of 1983
