The Irish Republican Socialist Party today welcomes the news that US arms manufacturer Raytheon has finally decided to leave Derry after a long campaign by local political activists.
Since the very beginning our party activists have been involved with the other groups and individuals in all aspects of the campaign to close Raytheon down.
We would like to say that we have won a major victory but we honestly cannot claim that. It is though a symbolic victory and a minor battle has been won but one that can and should give encouragement to all others throughout the world that these companies can be faced down and eventually defeated.
Raytheon represents the very worst of global capitalism in that the company has no regard for the victims of it’s apparatus once it is sold to governments and private security firms, their only motivation is profit. Their materials have been responsible for the deaths of countless innocent civilians throughout the world and it is in solidarity with these innocent victims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine that the IRSP took part in the many actions against the Raytheon facility in Derry.
We would now call upon Derry City Council to re-visit their own criteria and policies in relation to so called “inward investment” in light of the disaster of the Raytheon project.
ENDS
