Trade Union leader Mick Lynch highlighted the use of famine and hunger as a weapon of genocide in Gaza, and historically in Ireland, at the Cork Council of Trade Unions Palestinian Solidarity Rally in Grand Parade, Cork City.
Former RMT leader, Mick Lynch, said: “While no two historic situations are the same the use of enforced famine has long been a weapon utilised by imperialists as they seek to suppress a native population.
“In Ireland in 1845, the potato blight came as a natural disaster but the reality is the famine resulted from a government failure to act to relieve it. While the British administration ensured the continued export of cattle, grain and butter from Ireland the common people starved. While the merchants and strong farmers continued to make a buck the spalpeen and tenant farmer watched their family die for want of food.”
He added: “Today, we have famine in Gaza, children are starving to death, old people dying in food queues. All this is presented in near real time to all of us on our digital screens. Faces with skin stretched tight over the bones of the face, provokes a folk memory of our ancestors starved, diseased and dying due to a policy of a foreign government.
“These same faces stare back at us today from Palestine. Families starve as thousands of tonnes of food aid stands just meters away, the trucks containing them prevented entry to Gaza by a colonial army equipped and supported by, among others, the US and UK.”
Cork Council of Trade Unions and SIPTU Divisional Organiser, Adrian Kane, said: “The Irish people have a deep understanding of famine. The Great Famine of 1845 to 1847 is the defining event of modern Ireland. In Cork, today, we will express our solidarity to the people of Gaza who, like our ancestors before us, are being sacrificed on the altar of colonialism, a people starved in a world of plenty due to the actions of an oppressor.”
He added: “Palestine must rely on global civil society to fight for them and call for the end of the Israeli siege of Gaza. We must do that by supporting the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement established by Palestinian civic leaders which calls for the cutting of all economic and social ties with Israel until its war crimes end.”
Pictured: Trade Unionist Des Geraghty, Singer Karan Casey, Mick Lynch and Deputy General Secretary Ethel Buckley following the Cork Premiere of a new film on the life and ideas of James Connolly at the Mother Jones Festival in Shandon, Cork.