We Serve Neither Bush Nor Blair - But Ireland

galway | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Tuesday April 18, 2006 03:27

by Niall Farrell - Galway Alliance Against War

SAVE OMAR

The Galway Alliance Against War’s Easter Commemoration was completely different from anything seen in the city. The audience of over 100 people had the opportunity to listen to a series of speakers, including the main oration given by a British-based Libyan, Abubaker Deghayes, who spoke about the situation of his brother Omar who is an internee in the infamous US controlled Guantanamo Bay camp for four years now.

Mellows: Is mise Iraq

Omar Deghayes, whose case has been taken up by Amnesty International, was kidnapped by “bounty hunters” in Pakistan, tortured, during which he was blinded in one eye, and then was transported off to Guantanamo. Since August he has been on hunger strike and is being force-fed. Abubaker Deghayes asked the Irish people to write to his brother and to put pressure on the Irish government to stop allowing “CIA torture jets to land in Shannon or any Irish airport.” Mr Deghayes also said the best way the Irish people could commemorate 1916 was by opposing the oppression of other peoples, in particular they should insist that US troops travelling to the illegal war in Iraq should be stopped. But Mr Deghayes had one clear message for the people of Galway, to support the “Save Omar” campaign.

Rosa Plunkett O’Laoghaire, the great grandniece of the 1916 leader Joseph Mary Plunkett, also had a strong anti-war message. She compared Bertie Ahern’s and Minister O Cuiv’s acceptance of the US army’s use of Shannon to that of John Redmond’s and Edward Carson’s support for Irish participation in the First World War.

Following the commemoration, members of GAAW held a silent and dignified protest as Fianna Fail conducted its Easter Commemoration. A GAAW spokesperson said afterwards that members of the peace group felt it was an opportunity to express their disgust at the Fianna Fail-PD government implicating the Irish people in the deaths of well over 150,000 Iraqis. “In a period of 3 years the equivalent of 3 times the Galway population has been slaughtered in Iraq. What we are talking about is terror on a quite unimaginable scale. But our government has facilitated the US war criminals that have perpetrated this holocaust and they need to know people are angry. The 1916 Rising was about opposing colonisers and warmongers – the Fianna Fail-led government is today supporting those very people the martyrs of Easter 1916 gave their lives to oppose.”

Mellows: Is mise Iaraic