British Labour Government to the Ulster Loyalists.
As internment enters its fifth year, 240 men and boys still inhabit the cages of Long Kesh. According to Merlyn Rees, Northern Ireland Secretary of State, these must remain imprisoned without trial until violence has ceased. To the Labour Government these men are desperate terrorists and a threat to the community. One of these dangerous people is a young man, Hugh Trainor; Hugh is a spastic who has lost the power of both of his legs after injury to his spine. Others are grandfathers well beyond the age of Protests to mark the fourth anniversary of internment are being held throughout the north of Ireland this week. At more than 13 centres speakers will be calling for the immediate end of internment and the release of all political prisoners. major theme at the demonstrations and rallies will be the need to organise against any return to the days of Orange ascendancy, against any policy which involves the hand over of power by the military service.
But all the 240 people in Long Kesh have one thing in common.
They are all Republicans: no Loyalists are interned in the north of Ireland. This is yet another concession by the British Government to the Loyalist demands for a return to the Protestant ascendancy.
One of Merlyn Rees first acts as Minister was to lift the ban on the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) as an illegal organisation, and since then this organisation has more than once enjoyed his hospitality at Stormont Castle. But when not supping tea with Rees the UVF by its own admission is engaged in a Another campaign of assassinations of Catholics.
The horrific slaying of the Miami Showband, which even brought crocodile tears fromWilson and Cosgrave at the European Security Conference in Helsinki, was the work of the UVF and they were not slow to proclaim their responsibility. The following day their victims were a minibus of Catholic OAPs returning from a bingo session. Both these ambushes took place within the notorious murder triangle' of Portadown-DungannonArmagh, where Loyaust assassination squads, often decked out in British Army uniforms on sale in local shops, have claimed the lives of 29 Catholics in recent months.
These assassinations are part and parcel of the Loyalist campaign for what they term "majority rule - the democratic phrase which for fifty years served as a coverlet for the sectarian Orange state. Present British policy despite the Provisionals ceasefire, is to aid this campaign. Each day produces dozens of reports from the anti-Unionist areas of British arm'.
ASSASS INATIONS AUEW.
Loyalist takeover. Army harassment and murder aimed at intimidating the Catholic population into passivity.
Belfast: Charles Irvine, aged 16 was shot dead by the Scots Guards when a car backfired on the Falls Road. Derrick McCarthy received 50 stitches to wounds on his back and several more to head wounds after being beaten up by the Black Watch in Turf Lodge.
Newry: An 11-year-old boy was punched on the face and kicked in the leg by a soldier of the Green Howards. The regiment claimed in a statement that the boy jumped from a wall and bit into a soldier's Derry: Twelve trade union officials said in a statement that people are being physically and verbally abused by British Army personnel' and they complained at the increas ing number of raids, checkpoints and foot patrols in the anti-Unionist areas. All 12 were members of the The list is endless but one thing is clear: the intention of British policy is to use the ceasefire to demobilise and to distract the antiUnionist population from any sort of mass activity which might lead to resistance to the impending Meanwhile the confidence of the Loyalists continues to grow. working class to resist the takeover and end repression. Unfortunately the major anti-imperialist organisations decided to proceed with their own demonstrations and refused all attempts at a united front. But the threat is too great to allow for individual organisations going their own way. Resistance must be built from all groups acting together to destroy the British and Loyalists' intentions to re-impose a Stormont.
UNITY NEEDED For this reason a United Anti Internment Committee has been for formed in Belfast and has already received the support of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, Peoples Democracy and the Revolutionary Marxist Group (Irish Section of the Fourth International). It has agreed on a programme of protests over the next fortnight and called for the participation of all anti-imperialist organisations.
The need for unity was never greater. The SDLP are playing into the hands of the UUUC, the British Government is stepping up repression in the nationalist ghettoes, the Southern Government has launched an onslaught on Republicans in the 26 The anti-Unionist population is at one in its opposition to all these measures. It must make that unity a real one and make it now, Then maybe the marches and rallies over the next fortnight might go a long way towards freeing Hugh Trainor and his comrades, ending internment and preparing to ensure there is no return to Stormont.
John Magee.