Posted on 12/29/2012 5:03:41 PM PST by nickcarraway
Hollywood actress Jane Fonda lobbied the British Government to intervene and stop the 1981 hunger strike, newly released files reveal.
The two-time Oscar winning star sent a telegram to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher urging her to grant the prisoners political status.
Her message was sent in May 1981, at the height of a crisis which saw 10 republican prisoners starve themselves to death.
The telegram, dispatched to Downing Street, is also signed by her then husband Tom Hayden, a US social and political activist.
It states: Please save the lives of the hunger strikers by granting them political status.
The sanctity of human life must override any political considerations.
The 1981 hunger strike triggered one of the worst crises of the Troubles, galvanising support for republicans and turning Thatcher into a hate figure for much of Northern Irelands nationalist community.
The Governments perceived intransigence also drew widespread international condemnation, and files released by the Public Records Office in Belfast reveal how letters flooded in from across the world, including Russia, Australia and the US.
Ten hunger strikers died, including Bobby Sands who secured a propaganda coup by winning the Fermanagh/South Tyrone by-election, before the protest was called off in early October.
Fonda was the most high-profile name in correspondence sent to Downing Street.
Now aged 74, she is best known for her acclaimed roles in films such as Klute, Coming Home, On Golden Pond and They Shoot Horses, Dont They?
She is a well-known political activist and controversially opposed the Vietnam War. She also protested against the Iraq conflict and violence against women.
The files contain correspondence relating to the hunger strike from a wide variety of people.
One of the most poignant appeals to Thatcher came from Alice McElwee, whose son Thomas was the ninth prisoner to die after 62 days without food.
In a handwritten letter dated July 22, 1981 17 days before her sons death Mrs McElwee called for an end to the dreadful hunger strike.
The way I see it, as long as the hunger strike goes on we will never have peace, she said.
I appeal to you as a mother to a mother to allow direct talks to take place between the prisoners and the Northern Ireland Office, to bring about a just solution to the prison struggle, save further loss of life and eventually bring peace to our troubled country.
The letter was passed to Michael Alison, the minister responsible for prisons in Northern Ireland, and a reply was sent by his private secretary.
It states that while Mr Alison felt great sympathy for Mrs McElwee, it was her sons decision whether to end the hunger strike.
What he and his colleagues demand is far beyond what any reasonable government could concede, and cannot be the subject of negotiation, the reply stated.
After so many deaths and so much suffering in the community it must surely now be clear that the only way forward is for your son and the other hunger strikers to call off their fasts.
The Government was also contacted by a former Dutch prisoner of war about the crisis.
Elka Schrijver (80) was held in Scheveningen prison, before being transported to Germany during the Second World War.
Referring to the right to associate freely with other republican prisoners, Ms Schrijver said the authorities would be 100% mad to allow this.
I guess the nutritional value of bull$%!t is negligible.
How special.
Hanoi Jane can *always* be depended upon to take stances that are contemptful (is that a real word?) of the decency of Western civilization.
I suspect that traitor wench and Nancy Pelosi are closely related genetically.
The protesters were making a political statement. They were not being forcibly denied access to food and water.
Liberals never say what they really mean.
This from an abortion supporter.
So? She is still a tratior to the USA.
So? She is still a tratior to the USA.
So? She is still a tratior to the USA.
Treason seems to be a lifelong policy for this witch. Supporting terrorist murderers is no surprise from Hanoi Jane.
Hanoi Jane--Leon Rausch
God preserve and bless Maggie Thatcher and accept her at last to His Bosom for her eternal rest.
Even though Ireland was technically ‘neutral’, the IRA HATED the British, so it ‘allied’ itself with the Germans during WWI. And since it was the British who created the debacle known as ‘Palestine’, I can see the IRA joining forces with the PLO, later on.
What many Americans never realized (but I’m sure Jane Fonda knew) was that the IRA was a communist organization
But now that under Obama part deux we’ll all be commies too, who cares?
Maybe WW II. The IRA was a legal army that fought with the Brits in the first war. My grandfather was gassed by the Germans.
Probably the only time she ever defended Republicans in her life.
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