Fighting for peace in Ireland in the 21st century-John Lannon

“..significant strides to peace in the island of Ireland have been made towards that still, but the democratic governments are behaving in a very different way.” J. Lannon

Posted by Shaun McGee

Posted to europeannewsweekly.wordpress.com

John Lannon of www.Shannonwatch.org is interviewed in the attached podcast (23 mins).

https://soundcloud.com/sean-arclight/fighting-for-peace-in-ireland-in-the-21st-century-john-lannon

On the eve of the new book release in Derry, Northern Ireland I talk with John Lannon about the relevance of the book release coinciding with the Bloody Sunday tragedy on its remembrance day.

With recent news coming out about unregulated Snowden style spying by the Irish state on citizens, politicians and journalists we find that the UK Government makes the same mistakes today that Magaret Thatchers government made concerning the military strategy employed in Northern Ireland. The Irish Times claims some 1000`s of deaths could have been saved if a diplomatic solution was used at an earlier point.

John Lannon said that he felt that ireland was well on the track towards the trend of NATO imperialsim and violence if things were to continue on this course.

He said;

“The book looks at the transformation of Shannon Airport to a U.S. forward operating base”

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He went on to say that a recent poll showed that 68 percent of Irish people were in favour of Irish neutrality.

The book has many testimonials from well known academics and politicians attesting to Irelands strong stand on human rights and peace issues.

The book will be launched at the tragedy that happened in Derry during a peaceful protest where british soldiers opened fire on innocent civilians. The opening page is a draft of the Irish constitution that was agreed in 1916. This year is the 100th year of the Irish state.

John went on to say that many people, from the Republics conception, have been fighting for seperation of imperialist asperations and rejecting the pull to war. John points out that there were many communities that worked over the 20 years, of mis-guided British security operations, to slowly move towards greater peace and stability. John also points out that much has been done but there is still a way to go as there are remnants of criminal activities still left from the worst of the “troubles”.

John then went on to say that in so many areas that the governments did not listen to the peoples wishes and that supporting Saudi Arabias war in Yemen, continuing wars in the middle east and the refugee disaster that ensued.

“Significant strides to peace in the island of Ireland have been made towards that still, but the democratic governments are behaving in a very different way”

I asked John how he would enlighten the public and make them fully aware of the implications of having a US base of operations and allowing US military access to Irelands airspace. He pointed out that there is a loss of revenue associated with these flights and the claims of the agreement bringing prosperity, were likley false claims.

John thought that the gloal authorities suffered from “Greed, avarice and a grave lack of self respect for life and human dignity”

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Image source; http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/10/2012102282736909598.html

John also said that another way that might work is to involve groups that are fighting the same problems or in the case of Japan and the Okinawa US base has left a trail of criminality including rapes of local girls. The Japanese contituion is one of peace and similar to ireland so John called out to any Okinawa activist groups to contact him so information and experiences could be shared.

He also said that using the media that would run with the story (there are some but too rare) and publishing this new book as well as a raft of protests, meetings direct actions and good old perserverence to get the word out.

You can get an electronic version of this book on the Shannonwatch website