Ireland gives a summer welcome to Citizen Traveller - yet again.

national | rights, freedoms and repression | feature

Monday August 02, 2004 16:04

by seedot

In August 2002 Indymedia Ireland carried a letter to the EZLN and Mexican civil society entitled "In Ireland Marcos is a Traveller".. The previous month the above poster had appeared campaigning against the trespass laws that had recently been passed. In the two years since that article Ireland passed the Nice treaty and built an Anti-War movement. Indymedia published 75,000 articles or comments and the Public Order Act sprang to prominence used against RTS'ers, Bin Tax campaigners and others. Of course some of those 75,000 articles also mentioned the trespass aspect and it's use against travellers. But since the DoJ decided to cancel the Citizen Traveller campaign, somehow the issue faded from the view of many.

The stories from Cork should surely be told. Last summer, we saw why this county leads the league table of evictions with 138 evictions taking place under the new act in the first 12 months of its operation. An eviction in May 2003 (with more details and loads of debate) and another this summer (more coverage here). Indeed the last two years have seen the TASS initiative and — on Indymedia at least — an attempt to increase traveller visibility by telling the stories, following the cases and discussing the issues.

An Indymedia editor suggested an update to 'Marcos is a Traveller' and contact was made with the Traveller Visibility Group. We got sent a set of pictures with asides and an invitation to tell the big story, do a feature and say what was happening. But when you look at the pictures, see what Ireland demands of her citizens, even those who qualify under the proposed new restrictions, its very hard to improve on the words that were published here two years ago.

This war is happening everywhere including Ireland. The Irish government is at present using draconian new laws to move Indigenous Irish Travellers from anywhere that they attempt to camp. They are the Irish equivalent to the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico and they are being described openly by members of the establishment in Ireland as 'Terrorists'. They, unlike the EZLN, have never taken up arms to fight for Justice, Peace and Dignity. They have done nothing except live their lives as their ancestors have for generations. They are a nomadic people. Just today I read of 30 families who had moved their caravans to an unused portion of land near the city of Dublin (our capital) being driven from this land by the Irish Police.

So why am I telling this to the Zapatistas and Mexican Civil Society? To point out that in the Fourth World War things are becoming the same everywhere. And to point out that the resistance everywhere finally can realise this through channels of authentic speech and authentic tellings of the truth.

And to show the pictures of the welcome that Citizen Traveller receives this summer.