Wednesday 30 April 2014

Tir ,Iaith , Gwlad a Rhyddid - Land, Language, Country and Freedom - Let the Struggle Begin


ON THIS MAYDAY IN WALES WE AT YR AFLONYDDWCH MAWR/GREAT UNREST GROUP CALL FOR 

Tir, Iaith, Gwlad a Rhyddid. 

It's Now or Never - Let The Struggle begin on Mawr this Summer and by the Autumn see it spread across the land in campaigns and protests upon which a true National Liberation Movement and Struggle is built and advances to victory under the slogan of


Tir, Iaith, Gwlad a Rhyddid. 





                                       
Picture : Bread or Blood the Cry of the Merthyr Rising when Red Flag first raised in Wales

We at the Great Unrest are Welsh Socialist Republicans with the working class spirit of the Miners Next Step of 1912 we believe in the power of our class the working class to change Wales and the world.

On this May Day 2014 we call for the social and economic decline of Wales to be arrested and to bring forth a new spirit of Revival and Renewal in Wales based upon the ideas of Welsh Socialist Republicanism.

Socialism and a Welsh Socialist Republic is our aim.

To achieve that aim Wales needs social movements to bring together the forces for social change, these social movements need to address the 

10 Point Programme of The Great Unrest Group for a Welsh Socialist Republican Party.

The Mass Line for Wales with radical First Step UpPolicies.


To that Aim we have outlined a 10 point Programme.

1. We place the question of Welsh Land Act at the centre of Welsh Politics, we have taken up the fallen banner of 1895 for a Welsh Land Act

Welsh ownership of Land is key to the regeneration of Welsh National Life. 

Without Land there is no Liberty. 

2. Welsh Utilities like Electricity, Gas and Water to be placed under the control of the People through the creation of new socially owned worker controlled Welsh Public Enterprises.

We should eradicate Thatcherism and it's mantra of privatisation from Welsh National Life.

3. We require a Welsh Banking System with a Welsh currency and a Central Bank and Welsh Banks for urban and rural development. We reject the pound and the euro has being financial instruments unsuited for Welsh National development.

4. Welsh language survival in now in the hands of the British State with its corrupting grant system, a  dangerous place for the Welsh language to be in times of austerity. 

In the hard place between the British State and the treacherous Cultural Crachach.

Without addressing the Welsh Land Question which has been ignored for a 100 years the Welsh language is in serious danger of decline, the Crachhach has failed the Welsh language.

We see the revival of Welsh Labour has unleashing the creativity of the Welsh Soul and a flourishing of intellectual and physical labour, yes a new Welsh Revival in social as well as economic Welsh Life..

6. Bring forth new democratic institutions of the Welsh people like a Welsh Republican Congress or a Senedd Glyndwr.

Reject institutions of the British State for managing Welsh Decline in Wales like the Welsh Assembly.

7. Protect The National Health Service in Wales by halting any further privatisation of Health Service

Ensure community and not bureaucratic capitalist control of the Welsh Health Service, community need not private profit should guide the Health Service in the spirit of Aneurin Bevan..

8. Implement Great Unrest First Step Up policies for the visitors to food banks, unemployed and part time workers by giving them priority for allotments.

New Allotments will result from new proposed Welsh Land Act.

9. Township and Village Enterprises, Councils would be empowered to take over empty shops and make them into small units for new business start ups - twelve months free rent would be offered has part of the Great Unrest First Step Up policies.

10. Implement Independence not Dependency Policies, restructure relationship with British State in Economy whereby the proper price of Welsh resources are paid for.

All raw material exports from Wales should be subjected to value added/ high energy processing evaluation and over time all raw material exports will  be reduced has value added processing  exports will replace low value material exports.

Bring all unemployed into  productive activity - through public works and land based rural food sovereignty projects.


These 10 Points are for discussion for the People of Wales






Friday 25 April 2014

Kernow recognition has national minority a victory for Democracy says Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr


The UK government  announced Thursday that the Cornish, one of the ancient peoples of the British isles who trace their roots back to prehistoric times, will be formally recognized – along with the Scots, Welsh and Irish – as a national minority.
The decision has been taken under a European convention to protect the rights of national minorities and means that they will have the same rights and protections as the UK’s more established nationalities: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Thursday’s announcement comes after years of lobbying and the submission of two formal reports to Westminster seeking minority status.
There were also concerns that policies affecting Cornwall were being made in London, such as government plans to charge VAT on hot Cornish pasties, dubbed the “pasty tax” in 2012, which went ahead despite protests.
“We are absolutely elated,” said Dick Cole, the leader of Mebyon Kernow, the Cornish Nationalist Party.“The fact that Cornish culture, language and identity are now formally a national minority on a par with the Welsh, Scots and Irish is fantastic. We shall savor the moment,” he told the Independent.
The Cornish Nationalist Party is seeking to form a Cornish national assembly on the lines of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly, although the British government has no plans to grant permission for this.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Easter 1916 Uprising : Remembering the forgotten young commander - Sean McLoughlin



When the GPO was abandoned, Henry place became the site of the final retreat.

A young volunteer - Sean McLoughlin - found himself suddenly promoted to lead the retreat under heavy gunfire.

Here historian John Gibney gives a blow-by blow account of the famous retreat, and tells of McLoughlin's own unusual story.

Historian and author Charlie McGuire sheds some light on the important but largely forgotten role played by Sean McLoughlin in Ireland's independence struggle and the civil war which followed the signing of the Treaty with Britain

SEAN McLoughlin was an important, if largely unremembered, figure during the Irish revolution, 1916-1923. He began these years as a republican activist and ended it as a leading figure within the first Communist Party of Ireland.

In between, he was also Commandant General of the army of the Irish Republic, as the events of Easter week 1916 reached a climax, an Irish Volunteer organiser during the 1917-1919 period, an IRA Commandant during the Irish Civil War and a mass orator of exceptional ability within the socialist movement in Britain.

McLoughlin was born in Dublin in June 1895. He became involved in republican politics at the age of 15, and five years later, just weeks before his twenty-first birthday, took part in the Easter rising. McLoughlin was initially part of a unit which took over the Mendicity Institute, and whose role was to prevent the movement of British troops from the adjacent Royal Barracks into the city centre.

After the fall of the Mendicity, he escaped to the GPO. There, his leadership qualities and ability to think strategically under heavy fire were so outstanding, that James Connolly had him promoted to the pinnacle of military command, after he himself sustained severe injuries on the Thursday of Easter week. McLoughlin organised the republican evacuation from the bombed-out GPO, and also devised a plan for continuing the fight. He was overruled, however, by Padraig Pearse, who decided upon surrender.

After release from prison in December 1916, McLoughlin became an organiser of the Volunteer movement in Tipperary. He was also increasingly influenced by socialist politics, joining the Socialist Party of Ireland, and embarking upon two long speaking tours in Scotland and Northern England, organised by the Socialist Labour Party (SLP) during 1920-21.

McLoughlin's meetings were often attended by thousands of workers and were usually described by local SLP branches as the best they had ever organised. Such was his impact that one ex-SLP member, interviewed in 1975, described him as the greatest public speaker he had ever witnessed.

McLoughlin was also an innovative theorist.

He argued that the Irish revolutionary struggle was linked to that of the struggle for socialism in Britain, through being directed against the same ruling class. Unlike most socialists of that era, McLoughlin felt that socialism would be established in Ireland before Britain. He believed that this would detonate uprisings throughout the British Empire, which would in turn precipitate the destruction of capitalism in Britain itself.

Taking an internationalist position, McLoughlin felt that the triumph of socialism in Britain would be the only way that an Irish socialist republic could be sure of long term survival. As a result of this analysis, he urged Irish and British workers to support both Irish independence, and the socialist movements in both countries.

McLoughlin returned to Ireland in July 1922, following the outbreak of civil war. Like all Irish communists, he viewed the Treaty as an obnoxious arrangement between British imperialism and Irish capitalism.

McLoughlin joined the Communist Party of Ireland, (CPI), which was led by 21-year old Roddy Connolly, the son of James. The CPI strategy was to fight alongside the IRA, against the neo-colonialist Free State administration, whilst encouraging the republicans to adopt a socialist programme, that would win the support of workers and small farmers.

In pursuit of this strategy, McLoughlin joined the IRA and commanded a flying column in Limerick, spreading socialist ideas within the republican movement in the process. In December 1922, however, McLoughlin was captured and sentenced to death by the Free Staters.

The sentence was not executed and he was eventually released in October 1923, after the IRA had been crushed.

With the CPI being disbanded by Moscow in January 1924, McLoughlin decided to work with Jim Larkin, who had returned to Ireland some months previously. An acrimonious split between the two, following Larkin's disastrous leadership of a rail workers strike, however, precipitated his final departure from Irish socialist politics nine months later.

McLoughlin moved to Hartlepool and, although jailed yet again around the time of the General Strike, slowly faded from revolutionary activity. He struggled badly with ill-health in his later years and died a wholly forgotten figure in Sheffield, aged just 64, in February 1960.

The above article originally appeared in the Scottish Socialist Voice.

Charlie McGuire is currently a history researcher at the University of Teeside.

His book Roddy Connolly and the Struggle for Socialism in Ireland was published by Cork University Press on 4 March, 2008 (ISBN 978-1-85918-420-2)

Monday 21 April 2014

TOTAL RESISTANCE NOW !



  
TOTAL RESISTANCE NOW!
 
Introduction by Gethin Gruffydd.
 
Make Our Land Ungovernable
 
Never mind all the Plaid Cymru elections blather and indeed the Welsh Independence wishful thinking, that will never become a reality unless you pick up now the Red Pitchfork and begin a real struggle of Radical Resistance against the on going clear and present danger of on-going Cheque Book Conquest that seeks to make of our Country CORPORATE COLONY CYMRU.
 
It's Now or Never - Let The Struggle begin on Mawr this Summer and by the Autumn see it spread across the land in campaigns and protests upon which a true National Liberation Movement and Struggle is built and advances to victory under the slogan of
 
Iaith, Gwlad a Rhyddid.
 
RWE/BEAUFORT  ROAD/WINDFARM 
 
It is clear that this development will completely ruin Mawr and Mynydd y Gwair in particular for thousands of people, and have been forced through illegally by bribery and corruption. I fully support the movement to get rid of Beaufort from Wales, to nationalize (or Communalise) his lands and to make him pay for any damage.
 
THE STRUGGLE!
 
1) An all out resistance to wind turbines on Mynydd y Gwair using all means available, including mass civil disobedience and mass lobbying, a high turnout at inquiry and planning meetings, lobbying for an overturn of the City and County Council meetings that betrayed a 90% majority against turbines in Gower, demands for judicial reviews, injunctions, work to rule, strike action, refusal to work on turbine sites, refusal to maintain the turbines, mass refusal to pay Council taxes, mass refusal to pay electricity bills and so on.  
 
2) Major on going protests against this RWE road 'Highway to Hell' proposal. That will stop the entire development.
 
3) Local anti turbine referenda throughput Wales, and
particularly in Gower.
 
4) Introduction of government by referendum.
 
5) Land Acts for Wales along the Irish Land Acts, see petition by Sian Ifan and myself also Land and Liberty Campaign of the Great Unrest Group .

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/land-act-for-wales.html
 
 
6) Mass protests all along the route, lying down in front of lorries, and so on, building of barricades and ditches to stop the lorries. Organization of relief protest groups coming in from all over Wales so the lorries are stopped permanently by hundreds of people blocking the roads day and night for months if necessary.
 
7) International condemnation of Beaufort as on websites, blogs and other Social Media.
 
8)  Protests at the Eisteddfod.
 
9) Support for the 'Great Unrest' Land and Liberty Issue.
 
10) Formation of a Republican Movement/Congress or Convention in Wales.
 
11) Pressure for complete independence.
 
12) Pressure for compensation for massive environmental damage.
 
13) Elimination of hereditary aristocracy from Wales.
 
14) 100% inheritance tax for large estates.
 
15) Laws against absentee landlordism in Wales.
 
16) Return of stolen land to the People.
 
17) Laws against arbitrary sale of property to the highest bidder.  
 
18) Establishment of Byrdd Iaith and limitation of monoglot immigration into these heavily protected areas.
 
19) Many other protest going on for years if necessary by such groups as 'Hawliau'.
 
20) Lobby for a quick end of turbine subsidies to greed ridden aristocrats and pseudo farmers.  
 
                    It should be made impossible for people to sell their heritage. This is the root cause of Betws. Build on the legal gains made by EPAW.
 
Myron Evans
 
DO SEND ON THIS EMAIL TO THOSE IT WILL BE OF INTEREST TOO ASAP.
 
Further Information.
 

TARIAN GLYNDÅ´R


tarianglyndwr.blogspot.com/

'STRYVELAND CYMRU' Homeland Defence Movement.

stryveland.blogspot.com/
 

CYMRU'N CODI/WALES RISING 1 - 7/6/ 2012

cymruncodi.blogspot.com/

If you Ignore the Welsh Land Campaign 2014 it will be at high cost to Cymru




Sunday 20 April 2014

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr endorses callout for 4th /5th September protest in Newort against NATO

Callout

 
This year NATO will have their next summit at Celtic Manor Resort, in Newport, south Wales. In early September 2014, “world leaders” – all directly responsible for untold death, illegal torture flights, and wars fought purely to protect Western business interests and resource supply routes – will gather on the edge of this historic Welsh city. Many people from Newport, Cardiff, Bristol and beyond, will oppose the summit and use a diversity of tactics against it. We, an anti-capitalist, anti-militarist network in South Wales, plan to facilitate mobilisations and provide space for workshops, skill-shares and social events. We are organising without leaders as we do not agree with bosses or bombs.

NATO has often used the term ‘humanitarian interventions’ to disguise the fact that it actually fights for the strategic, economic and political benefit of the elite classes within NATO member countries. Militarism and capitalism are part of the same global power structure. A critique and confrontation of capitalism is therefore an indispensable aspect of our anti-militarist stance.

As it stands, NATO is a nuclear armed alliance with over 5000 nuclear weapons. It was supposedly established for mutual defence during the Cold War, and should have been disbanded when the Soviet Union ended. Instead, it has expanded and become an aggressive alliance force, engaged in wars with a crusader mentality.

For nearly ten years it has been conducting the war in Afghanistan, historically a pivotal region between the West and the East, where around 100,000 innocent civilians have died and three million innocent people have become refugees.

But a critique of militarism and capitalism doesn’t end with NATO: The annual global military expenditure stands at over £1,072,600,000,000. Spending is estimated to equal £150 per person, per year, across the world. The UK military budget is the fourth highest in the world. At a time of austerity we must demand to know why military spending is so high and expose the brutality of those in global positions of power.

Most people face much more pressing issues than new fighter aircraft or submarines. People want money spent on local facilities and proper access to social and health infrastructure. Even when the military has made some cuts, these have almost entirely impacted on people in the first instance – rather than material things like arms purchases – through reductions in personnel, lower wages and pensions. The UK still plans to spend almost £160,000,000,000 on new weapons by 2022, including £35.8 billion on nuclear-armed submarines that are designed not to be used.

While people around the world struggle to provide basic necessities for their families, governments still squander vast resources on military interventions that are wasteful of both resources and lives, and reflect outdated paradigms.

The USA, under the banner of NATO, is still working to place a “missile defence” system in Europe, which is provoking an unsettling arms race with Russia. However, we do not have to agree to their plans for us. People in communities around us are building resistance to military bases in their area. Including in Aberporth, Ceredigion, Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, Faslane near Glasgow, EDO in Brighton, local people are mobilising and opposing militarism.

Newport has a history of radicalism. The Chartist rising, which celebrates it’s 175th anniversary this year, was the last large-scale armed insurrection in Wales, England and Scotland. A popular piece of public art celebrating the revolt was recently demolished ahead of schedule, as part of a planned redevelopment of the centre, financed by a £90million loan which the Council have gifted to developers whilst slashing funds for frontline services. This naive gamble on reviving the fortunes of the town via the pumping of public funds into private companies, joins a long list that includes LG, The Ryder Cup, and now this NATO summit.

Together with people from across South Wales and beyond, we are going to mobilise between this winter and September against militarism, Cold-War relics, and inflated defence budgets.

We hope you can join the events, mobilisations and activities to oppose NATO and world leaders being in Newport. Much is planned between now and September. We aim to be an open and inclusive network, working together, with as many people as possible to find non-hierarchical local and global structures as alternatives to the system of exploitation, while being mindful of potential state and corporate infiltration of our movement. Our website will be updated with news and information and we have an email address that we can be contacted at:  stopnatocymru at riseup.net

Stop NATO Cymru, part of the Anarchist Action Network

supported by

South Wales Anarchists, Cymru Wales IWW, Cardiff Food not Bombs, Swansea
Food not Bombs, No Borders South Wales, Bristol Against Arms Trade.


Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr/Great Unrest Group/

Monday 14 April 2014

SECOND FRONT NOW ! MAKE WALES UNGOVERNABLE?

 
How do you know if you can do it or not until you have tried?
 
Be a Welsh Warrior Not a Wimp!!!
 
Gethin ap Gruffydd
 

Potential Points of Resistance to RWE Turbine Highway Across the Seven Hills of Mawr by Gethin ap Gruffydd

 


 POTENTIAL PROTEST POINTS OF RESISTANCE TO RWE TURBINE HIGHWAY ACROSS THE SEVEN HILLS OF MAWR EN ROUTE TO CONSTRUCTION OF THE MYNYDD Y GWAIR WIND FARM.
 
Part One:
 
Mountain Road Felindre to Garnswllt, from Cattle Grid to Glan - yr -Dafon there may be need for a permanent protest blockade and occupation camp opposite Penlle'r Bebyll.

1:  At this point (Cattle Grid and Road to Felindre behind the foto below) , the RWE Road comes from the left across the Mountain from Bolgoed/Gopa Hill. Looking ahead is the Mountain Road to Garnswllt which RWE intends to seize as part of their construction Road, they will turn off at Blaen Nant Farm and traverse three more Mountains to get to the MyG Wind Farm site. Note along road to left is path to the Mynydd y Pysgodlyn Trig and just off the road and path is the Penlle'r Bebyll (Summit of Tents) much reduced archaeological site.






 
2: Cattle Grid (view towards Felindre). 
 



 
3: Penlle'r Bebyll. (not far from Road).


 



 
4: Mynydd Pysgodlyn Trig (toppled).
 
 


 


5:  Proceed along Mountain Road and note to the right, one can see the Mynydd y Betws Wind Farm, a little to right and in the foreground Mynydd Y Gwair can be seen.

 



 
6: Continue along Road and note the right turn off to Blaen Nant Ddu Farm, It's here that the RWE Construction Road will continue across three more hills to Mynydd y Gwair
 

 
 
7:  Little further on Glan - yr - Dafon. (Afon Dulais below, flows into Cwm Dulais and on to Pontardulais, you can look down into Cwm Dulais from the Mynydd Pysgodlyn area and it is here you will see Red Kites seeking out prey). Just maybe RWE traffic will come from this direction too.
 



8: The Radical Resistance Red Pitch Fork is raised once more, this time across the Seven Hills of Mawr in our Stop the RWE Road - Stop the Mynydd y Gwair Wind Farm Campaign.
 

 
 




 

Friday 11 April 2014

Open Letter to Rhun ab Iorwerth A.M.from Gethin Gruffydd



Pawb. Time we challenged Plaid Cymru which must be Europe's most 'Wimpish' Nationalist Party though that is not really the case, more like Cultural Nationalist Soft Left 'Renewable Republicans' of a 'Leanne Luvvie' kind. Some patriots actually wonder why she does not think and talk up 'Independence' as worth campaigning for but myself am more amazed that this lady as the audacity along with many in her party (not least some well known so called Rali Cilmeri Patriots too) to actually collaborate with the QUISLING WAG TAN 8 TRAITORS in the handing over of vast acres of rural Cymru, in main our precious Mountains to Venture Capitalist backed Wind Mill Companies aka 'Corporate Raiders' aka 'Windmill Masters' to with other New and Old 'Conquistadors seek to make our Wales, their CORPORATE COLONY CYMRU! Whatever, what you going to do about it, other than sleep thru the destruction and desecration of our Land Scape. Time 'Nats' woke up and spoke up and challenged the leadership of Plaid Cymru up front and in their faces, not least then working within Plaid Cymru to set up and advance an Anti - Turbine Terror Platform to campaign against PC Windmilling of Wales policies. Now do it, don't just think about it wise up and show some real NATIONALIST GUTS!

See my 'Open Letter', directed at  Rhun ab Iorwerth as he is PC spokes Person on Transport and thus should be concerned about the RWE TURBINE TRANSPORT ROAD ISSUE. Other than this prepare for some serious struggle for the Liberation of Mawr from the Windmill Masters and not least the Duke of Beaufort and his Somerset Trust. Time to campaign hard and fast also be prepared for the long haul!

                                         Gethin Gruffydd.

PS: Have been doing further reseach on the Penlle'r Pebyll (Mynydd Pysgodlyn) and it goes back into much earlier times than what I had heard of it's 16th Century Dissident Religious uses. The name is taken to mean, 'Summit of the Tents' does this imply that perhaps a medieval army had camped there? Whatever, possibly this is telling us that at this point in RWE Turbine Road Construction, the Corporate Raiders will be seizing the Mountain Road for their own use. Thus let us set up our own Tents and occupy Mynydd Pysgodlyn - Penlle'r Pebyll (Google up on Maps) for a Blockade, YES?

                                                OPEN LETTER.  
 
Annwyl Rhun ab Iorwerth A.M.
 
                                                  See enclosed inormation re our intended protests against RWE Road across the Seven Hills of Mawr and the intended Mynydd y Gwair Windfarm. Plaid Cymru to date has made no real attempt to thwart all this and the profits of Capitalist Corporate Economic Raiders ‘New Conquistadors’ and of an ‘Old Conquistador’ Duke of Somerset whose family put in place by Charles II has been ripping of Morgannwg and Gwent in many ways in rents on land use and properties not least in Abertawe for many Centuries passed.
 
For further Info. See Tarian Glyndwr and Yr Adfeddiant Mawr blogs.
 
                                                                 It is not too late for Plaid Cymru to show an active radical interest, particularly to the issue of the RWE Turbine Mountain Road Construction and Turbine Transport Public Road use from Swansea Docks and Chepstow, via Penlliw to the 'Bolgoed Quarry' Entry. Your PC councillors might wish to pay attention and become active here?
 
                                                                 I am bemused that your so concerned about a pretty minor modern day ‘Marcher Lord’ ripping of people of Ynys Mon but say nothing about an ‘Old Conquistador’ ripping us off big time for near five Centuries.

Same re Jill Evans so concerned about Palestinian land being ripped off by Israelis but dead quiet about present day Old and New Conquistadors taking our land.
 
If you call Plaid Cymru a Nationalist Party I consider that means you act as the National Defenders of Cymru and our Communities. As for WAG Policies and those who remained silent on TAN 8 Terrorism upon Cymru.

This is hardly much different from English Kings from 1282 Conquest to 1536 and beyond handing over our Land to their supporters for profit and privilege.
 
 Then there are the Crown Estates, all the Coast and now Retail Parks as in Abertawe, does anyone know how much land they possess and where it is? time some work was done exploring all this and then do something about it, big time and if not WAG then the modern day ‘People of the Pitchfork must! 

Then where does Plaid Cymru stand or maybe rather with us lay before RWE Lorries at the Bolgoed Quarry Entry to the Seven Hills.
 
Yn Fyddlon.
 
                                                                                      G.Gruffydd.
 
PS: What is going on re the Vyrnwy Estate?
 
                            C/O sianifan@sky.co