Declassified files have revealed the shocking level of collusion between the British Army’s UDR regiment and loyalists. Micheál Smith is the author of a new book on the subject (for the Irish Times).
For some, the conflict in Northern Ireland was characterised by an impenetrable jumble of abbreviations. Amid the alphabet soup of loyalist paramilitary groups – the UVF, LVF, UDA, etc – some might mistakenly include the UDR. But the Ulster Defence Regiment was in fact a fully-fledged element of the British army.
The Great Spring Victory that culminated in the fall of Saigon and American occupiers fleeing for their lives, achieved the reunification of Vietnam 47 years ago, on April 30, 1975.
“Nothing More Precious than Independence and Freedom; They Have Chosen Uncle Ho’s Path”
The Great Spring Victory that culminated in the fall of Saigon and American occupiers fleeing for their lives, achieved the reunification of Vietnam 47 years ago, on April 30, 1975. The reunification of Vietnam shines in the annals of the liberation struggles of the peoples of the world. The defeat of U.S. imperialist aggression lifted the spirit of the peoples of the world who were striving to put an end to colonialism and imperialism. Revolution was then in flow. The world has since changed greatly, going into a period of retrogression and retreat of revolution, yet today’s Socialist Republic of Vietnam continues to shine and inspire.
Forty-seven years ago, the U.S. imperialists were resoundingly defeated by the heroic Vietnamese people, who had suffered greatly at the hands of the French colonialists and then the U.S. imperialists. Historic photos show the last of the U.S. invaders scrambling frantically to escape Viet Nam by helicopter, trying to save their worthless skins from the wrath of people’s war. Continue reading →
At the festival of Baisaki, the Sikh New Year, on April 13, 1919, the British opened fire on men, women and children in Amritsar, massacring more than 1,000 and injuring many more. The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre went down in history as one of the most heinous crimes of British rule. Today the site commemorates all those who were murdered there under British orders.
Commemorations at Jallianwala Bagh, April 13, 2019, honouring the 100th anniversary of those martyred by the British colonialists.
Canadian soldiers in the trenches at Vimy Ridge, 1917.
On April 2, 1917, the Canadian Corps, deployed as part of the British Army on Vimy Ridge in France in the First World War, initiated the largest artillery barrage in history up to that point. They shelled the German trenches for a week, using more than one million shells. The German artillery pieces were hidden behind the ridge, but by observing the sound and light from their firing, the Canadians were able to locate and destroy about 83 per cent of the German guns.
Today, the wars in which the U.S. imperialists and NATO members are engaged are not politics by other means when negotiations fail. These are wars of destruction and, because there are no politics, there are no negotiations.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an aggressive military-political alliance. It was conceived and brought into being on April 4, 1949 during the Cold War, on the pretext of defending Europe against “communist invasion” and the claim that the communist “evil” and totalitarianism were a threat to Western freedom and democracy. In this regard, it has always described itself as a defensive alliance, a myth perpetrated to this day which has no basis in fact.
This year marks the 46th anniversary of Land Day, which commemorates the events of March 30, 1976, when six Palestinians from Arab villages inside the Green Line were shot and killed by Israeli forces while protesting the confiscation of 5,500 acres of land from the Galilee. Since then, Land Day has been commemorated by Palestinians inside Israel as well as in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem and around the world | Five articles
Badia national festival marks Land Day 2022 in Gaza.
In Palestine rallies and marches mark Land Day. In the towns where the six martyrs were killed 46 years ago, Palestinians lay wreaths at their graves.
This article from our archives provides essential information on the vital issue of land and the rising of 1976, when the Palestinian citizens of Israel revolted against the Israeli government, which had just announced new and extensive land expropriation plans in the Galilee. Continue reading →
– A presentation by Dr. Isaac Saney, followed by Q&A –
Friday, March 25, 2022 at 3:30-5:30 pm EST
Organized by the University of Windsor to commemorate the UN International Day of the Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as part of the University of Windsor’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization (EDID) Week.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave System fundamentally altered not only the lives and destinies of millions of Africans and the African continent but also transformed the world. Its boundaries and reach extended into every dimension, facet and interstice of the new global society. Indeed, living in a world created by and through the sufferings and struggles of enslaved Africans presupposes that the creation of a more just and sustainable political, economic, social, and ecological order necessitates not only reckoning with this history but also demanding reparatory justice.
Developments of Concern Related to U.S./NATO War Hysteria
The memory of history will assert itself and reject comparing the defence of the Russian population of the Donbass with what Hitler did, while the neo-Nazi battallions attacking the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine get off scot-free.
Monument to the Children, Donestk, Donbass. Boy covers his little sister from attacks by Ukrainian army artillery |Getty
Women from around the world gathered at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in 1910 passed the resolution establishing International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day was first celebrated in March 1911, with March 8 set as the official date in 1921. Ever since women fought for the right to vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the essence of their fight has been political. They have put forward their claims on society as a matter of right, facing all kinds of state-inspired discrimination and violence against them and state-sanctioned attempts to relegate them to second, third and fourth grade citizenship based on brutal identity politics and exploitation. Women, however, speak in their own name and refuse to accept any limitations on their right to decide all matters which affect their lives. Their courage and determination in the front ranks of the struggle for a society which recognizes everyone as equal members of the body politic with equal rights and duties inspires everyone to also fight for the rights of all.
Crimean people celebrate being accepted as part of the Russian Federation in Simferopol, the Republic of Crimea, March 18, 2014.
In a referendum held on March 16, 2014, citizens of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. According to official data, Russians constituted 58.32 per cent of the population of Crimea, 24.32 per cent were Ukrainians and 12.10 per cent were Crimean Tatars. TML Daily wrote at the time:
On March 18, 2014 Russia and Crimea signed a treaty which gave the Russian Federation control over the Black Sea as well as the Sea of Azov, the west coastline of which borders on Eastern Ukraine and the Donetsk region. The agreement was announced by Russian President Putin who said two “constituent regions” of Crimea were to join the Russian Federation: the “Republic of Crimea” and the “City of Sevastopol,” both with the status of autonomous regions.
This article by Nathan J. Freeman was originally published by TML Daily on March 21, 2014 under the title “What is the Trouble and Who Are the Troublemakers?”
The cunning of history has positioned Ukraine as the latest country in which post-Soviet Russia and U.S.-led imperialism confront each other. The U.S.-led camp, which includes the old European colonialism, is on a rampage. The Russian government has responded in a measured way, securing its naval assets in the Crimea and going so far as to take Crimea out of the clutches of the fascist coup that seized power in Kiev while putting the elected president, Alexander Yanukovych, to flight.
Whether we speak of the organized blockades at border crossings or the occupation in Ottawa, or Coastal GasLink facilities on the Wet’suwet’en yintah or any other, what constitutes “critical infrastructure” to be protected in the name of “national security” and the “national interest” is defined not by the Canadian, Quebec and Indigenous peoples but by those who wield the decision-making power in a manner which favours narrow private interests.
Comox action in support of Wet’suwet’en, February 3, 2020.
Dresden had little or nothing to do with the war against the Nazis. But it had much, if not everything, to do with a new conflict in which the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists would be Anglo-American allies and the enemy would be the Soviet Union | DOUGAL MACDONALD
Aftermath of the 1945 bombing of Dresden, Germany by Allied forces – at the Old Market, following bombings on 13 February 1945 | WALTER HAHN/AFP/Getty Images
February 21st marks the 57th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, who later took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964. As a revolutionary internationalist and a leader of the Black liberation struggle, Malcolm X shaped and influenced a generation of Black activists, artists, revolutionaries and intellectuals. His impact has been profound and lasting. The assassination’s anniversary is, therefore, a time for serious contemplation of his legacy.
Seventy-seven years ago, Ford workers in Windsor, Ontario created a car blockade to defend their strike against an attack by the provincial police. It shows it is not about blockades per se but about who and what the blockade serves.
Monument to Soviet citizens and POWs at the ravine at Babi Yar.
By Christelle Néant
During his visit to Ukraine to inaugurate a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Babi Yar massacre, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier literally rewrote the history of the massacre of tens of thousands of Jews, and made Ukrainian collaborators of the Nazis look like victims.
Monuments at Babi Yar, left to right: to Jews; to Soviet citizens and POWS; to Roma; to children.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed at Babi Yar by the Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators in their campaign against the Soviet Union during World War II. They are said to be the worst committed up to that time, surpassed by even greater crimes committed by the Nazis after that.
Freedom of press of the reactionary ruling classes
In 1961 and for years after, the French and Anglo-American media colluded with the state to cover up the 1961 massacre of Algerians in Paris, ensuring impunity for those responsible for this heinous crime such as the Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, Prefect of the Paris police. This is an apt time to recall what happened. Continue reading →
Army deployed on the streets of Montreal October 15, 1970, the day before the War Measures Act is invoked.
October 16 marks the 51st anniversary of the proclamation of the War Measures Act by Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his Liberal government. Trudeau declared a state of “apprehended insurrection” in order to use the powers of the War Measures Act, which had been used in World War I and World War II, to indefinitely detain people without charges or trial.
Remembering the heroic miners of theBattle of Blair Mountain
Coal miners’ militant organizing to defend their rights and put an end to their untenable living and working conditions led to to the “West Virginia Coal Wars,” including the Battle of Blair Mountain.
The Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada remembers with great affection the workers throughout North America who have given their lives, been injured or sent to prison in the many battles for the dignity of labour and for a nation-building project to build the new without class oppression and exploitation.
National Wallace Monument and Ochil Hills in autumn | Ray Mann, Wikipedia
710 years ago on August 23, 1305, the English overlords executed the great Scottish patriot, William Wallace (Uilleam Uallas).
Although vastly outnumbered, especially in cavalry, Wallace and Andrew Moray’s Scottish army had historically defeated a much larger English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297.
After the victory, Wallace styled himself as “Commander of the Army of the Kingdom of Scotland” and the Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland. Although he utilized the term kingdom instead of nation, Wallace was not simply protecting a throne for an absentee ruler, he was protecting the independence of Scotland. As historian J.M. Reid observes, “Wallace [was] the champion of a rising of a people in its own defence.” [1]
After eight more years of skirmishing and battling with the English forces, on August 5, 1305, Wallace was betrayed and captured near Glasgow. He was handed over to King Edward I of England, who charged him with high treason. Wallace’s reply to the charge was, “I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.”
In a ceremony fit for barbarians, Wallace was dragged naked through the streets of London, then hanged, drawn, and quartered, and his body parts sent to various parts of the kingdom as a warning to other “rebels.”
In 1869 the National Wallace Monument was erected, very close to the site of his army’s glorious victory at Stirling Bridge.
Note
1.W. Croft Dickinson, Scotland from the Earliest Times to 1603, 3rd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, 155-59; J.M. Reid, Scotland’s Progress: The Survival of a Nation, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1971, 64.)
1942 photo of RCAF pilots from Torbay Air Force base in Newfoundland, some of the over one million Canadians who enlisted to fight fascism during the second world war.
On August 23, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Latvian, Estonian and other reactionary cliques are once again staging events to mark the anniversary of so-called Black Ribbon Day. “Commemorative events” are being held on Parliament Hill, the Rotunda of the Alberta Legislature, and a handful of other locales. In concert, Trudeau did not fail to issue a statement on Twitter, equating the victims of fascism with the so-called victims of communism and falsifying history. Scores of Canadians immediately began denouncing his statement on Twitter.
For the information of readers, we have updated an article by Dougal MacDonald originally published by this blog on August 24, 2018 which provides information on the so-called Black Ribbon Day.
76th Anniversary of August Revolution and Vietnam National Day
Sunday August 22, 2021 — 7:00 pm EDT Organized by the Canada-Vietnam Friendship Society To register or for more information contact: info@c-vfs.com Advance registration is required. Those registering will receive a non-transferable link to join the celebration.
Farmers hold their Kisan Sansad (Farmers Parliament) in Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.
By Jaspal Singh
The fight of the farmers in India to repeal three anti-farm laws and for their rights continues unabated with more and more initiatives being taken by the farmers, while the government’s attempts to defeat them meet one failure after another.
Farmers mark Indian Independence Day with tractor rallies and protests. Photo above of arrival at the Singhu border in Delh
August 15 is the 75th anniversary of the Independence of India which the ruling class is celebrating with pomp and ceremony, but not in the spirit of the people.
82nd Anniversary of the Birth of Hardial Bains, August 15, 1939
Hardial Bains
On August 15, we celebrate the birth, life and work of Hardial Bains, founder and leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). Hardial Bains was, above all else, a man of revolutionary action. He came to Canada as a youth from India in 1959 and immediately integrated with the life of the working people in British Columbia and took up the struggles of the student youth with whom he shared weal and woe.
“Nothing More Precious than Independence and Freedom; They Have Chosen Uncle Ho’s Path”
Hardial Bains
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