Ed George, Darren Williams, Leanne Wood and Brendan Young remember their comrade Ceri Evans
Ceri Evans took his own life at the beginning of August at the age of 36. Ceri was first drawn to revolutionary politics as a teenage activist in the anti-missiles movement of the early 1980s. He joined the International Marxist Group, British Section of the Fourth International, in 1981. From then until the day he died he remained a revolutionary socialist, an internationalist, a Marxist, and an irreconcilable atheist.
As a revolutionary socialist in Wales Ceri participated in a range of struggles. He played a prominent role in CND and Youth CND in the early 1980s. He was arrested on the picket line during the 1984-5 miners' strike. He worked full time for Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg. He acted as secretary of the Cardiff Miners' Support Group during the fight against pit closures in 1992. He was active in the struggle against the poll tax and against the Blair clique's rewrite of Clause Four.
Ceri favoured Welsh self government, expressed in the demand for a Constituent Welsh Assembly: an Assembly which would have full power to decide on all aspects of its functioning without being subject to a veto from London.
He eventually decided that the Welsh Labour Party was no longer the best place for his energies. Last February he publicly broke with Labour and joined Plaid Cymru - with the intention of organising with the left in Plaid.
A Ceri Evans Memorial Fund has been launched, with a view to publishing a collection of his writings. Donations can be made to the Ceri Evans Memorial Fund c/o 2 Wellington Mews, Wellington Street, Cardiff CF11 9BE, Britain.
