[Commission for Peace and Justice' has seen the…]

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Commission for Peace and Justice' has seen the eight hunger strikers, their commanding officer Brendan McParland, and Michael Allison, the junior Northern Ireland minister for prisons.

There is endless press speculation about an agreement. Yet it is difficult to find any basis for one.

Response

The government is not prepared to be seen negotiating with the prisoners "and has not offered any concessions to them. Northern Ireland secretary Atkins response said, The prisoners' five demands are: the right to wear their own clothes, the right to abstain from penal labour, the right to free association, the right to organise their own education and recreation, and restoration of remission.

Their reply to Atkins was far more conciliatory, pointing out that they had never been against improvements in conditions applying all prisoners and giving interpretations of prison work and free association much less wide-ranging than before.

They wrote:

"Comrades of ours have died and eight of our other comrades British administration to seek a solution to the H Block protests. It is a reasonable request"

There has been. no 'reasonable' response from the British government, and it looks like the best the Tories are likely to grant is something similar to what ended the first hunger strike in December. Then, the prisoners were presented with a document outlining changes in prison conditions the British would make for all prisoners.

When the hunger strike had been called off, they went back on implementing these conditions, causing the second hunger strike to start. still need our support, if they are to win any real and lasting concessions from this hardfaced government.

Nobody should let the negotiations and the rumours of a settlement lull them into complacency. Only when the voice of the labour movement is raised loud and clear, saying that these men and women are political prisoners and should be recognised as such, will the Tories be forced into granting decent settlement.

The next major demonstration will be in Manchester, on Saturday July 18th, starting from All Saints, Oxford Rd, at 1.30pm.

But right now there should be H-Block committees set up where there aren't any, so that Joe McDonnell isn't murdered in the same way that Bobby Sands, Raymond McCreesh, Francis Hughes and Patsy O 'Hara were. All Labour MPs must be approached with the demand that they break with the bipartisan policy of the Labour Party leaders like Concannon and Foot. Approach the people who would have no qualms about supporting the armed struggle in El Salvador or South Africa, and point out to them that if they don't support the Irish struggle 'they're being hypocritical. effect. erly.

and Chris Whytehead £10.