The German Ireland Solidarity Group invites you to join us:

Delegation to the West Belfast Festival

North of Ireland, Belfast, 30. July - 8. August 2004

Since 1988 during the first week of August the Irish Republican community of West Belfast turns into a colorful mixture of community festival, international culture and music events with artists from all over the world and political events on conflict resolution in the North of Ireland and internationally.

Last years most prominent speaker was Michael Moore, who's open air event was sold out within hours. International highlight was the event with Dr. Barghouti, a leading palestinian politician. The Israel government didn't allow him to leave the country to participate in the festival. Against these odds the event took place via video link to Ramallah.

A rally against collusion ended the festival. Collusion is the name for planned cooperation of British agencies with pro-British unionist death squads. Hundreds were killed through collusion during the troubles. Thousands rallied from the Irish communities of Belfast, from West Belfast, Ardoyne and New Lodge in North Belfast, Short Strand in East Belfast to Belfast City Hall to demand the truth and an end to state sponsored murder.

Conflict Resolution and Civil Rights

The West Belfast Festival is a political festival throughout. It supports the process of conflict resolution and is a voice against state terrorism in the North of Ireland and worldwide. It stands in the tradition of the civil rights movement which took to the streets in the end of the 60s to demand civil and democratic rights in the then Apartheid state Northern Ireland: one person one vote, end of discrimination in housing and companies, justice were their major demands.

During the end of the 1980s Great Britain led its "dirty war" in the North of Ireland with unbelievable brutality. In 1987 British agents were responsible for smuggling weapons from the then Apartheid state south Africa into the country to hand them over to Unionist death squads. British death squads shot people deliberately whom they suspected to be Irish-Republican activists. "Shoot to kill" was to be the name for this deliberate murders. In their aftermath the British Government was found guilty of "violation of the right to live" by the European High Court.

In this time with emotions at boiling point the idee of the West Belfast Festival was born. It should protest against state terror and oppression in a different way. It was thought to combine protest against oppression and war with celebrating the own culture and identity. It was the self confident answer of a community, which was once branded a "terrorist community" by a former British Northern Ireland Secretary of State".

In spite of the peace process being in place for six years, state agencies and police are still not changed and democratic change is an urgent need. This can be seen from the current crisis. It started in October 2002 with a sort of police driven (putsch) propaganda coup, which resulted in the suspension of the elected Assembly by the British Government. A massive amount of armoured police vehicles appeared in the front of the parliament to raid the offices of Sinn Féin in the parliament. Sinn Féin's office manager, his son in law and some other persons were arrested. All this was allegedly urgent action against an IRA spy ring. In December 2003 the main charges against all accused were dropped - without giving a reason, without trial and almost unnoticed.

It's ironic somehow and shows the true face of the British dirty warriors that the British agencies who planned this coup could relay on own experience as far as spy rings are concerned: as revealed by British labour party member Claire Short in March 2004 the British had a spy ring in place against UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

We invite you to join our delegation

Are you interested? We invite you to join our delegation to Belfast.

The program:

  		• Participation in the West Belfast Festival "Feile an Phobail" and the "Ard Eoin Fleadh" (Ardoyne Festival) in North Belfast.
  		• Visit of community groups in Irish-Republican communities and in pro-British Unionist communities. This part of the delegation is organized within the "Irish Political Tours" program of Coiste na n-Iarchimi, the Irish-Republican Ex Prisoners umbrella group.
  		• Discussion with the Irish-Republican party Sinn Féin about the difficulties within the peace process and how Europe could support conflict resolution in Ireland.
  		• Part of the program will be conducted together with the British group Troops Out Movement (TOM). TOM was founded in 1973 and campaigns for the removal of British troups from Ireland and for self determination for the Irish people as a whole.
  		• We integrate your special interests if possible.

    Travel and Accomodation:

    The delegation takes place from

    Sunday, 1. August 2004 (evening) - Friday, 6. August 2004 (evening).

    The travel to Belfast and back is organized by the participants individually. We provide informations on flights if needed. If you want us to help with accommodation we organize B&B accommodation in West Belfast. Many West Belfast locals provide rooms during the festival time to give people the chance to stay in the area. The price for such a local B&B is about GBP 15, i.e. EUR 23.

    The festival ends on August 8 with a rally. The last festival weekend is always expected to have some musical highlights. We recommend to stay in Belfast over the weekend even if the delegation ends on Friday.

    Costs:

    For support in planning and organisation we take a fee of EUR 30,00 per person for the Coiste "Irish Political Tours"-program. There will be no other fees for planning or conducting the delegation.

    The participants cover all expenses themselves (flight, B&B, food, admission to big music events of the festival, most of the festival events are free admission)

    Commitment of participants:

    The delegation program (as outlined above) is obligatory for all participants. All other events of the festival are individually choosen (there is no necessity to stay together as group all the time, you can choose the events after your own interests). Individuell reports from delegation members for our websites are very welcome.

    Reports of former delegations are accessible on our websites:

    http://archiv.info-nordirland.de/
    (activities)

    http://www.irlandinit-hd.de/
    (delegations)

    Precondition and registration:

    To be accepted to the delegation an interest in the situation in the North of Ireland is essentially. Previous knowledge about the situation is not necessary. Participants should be able to follow a discussion in English language.

    To register contact:

    Uschi Grandel, Holzhaussiedlung 15, 84069 Schierling, Germany
    Tel.: 0049.9451.949859, email: uschi@info-nordirland.de
    http://archiv.info-nordirland.de/