Yest 1 want to subscribe to Socialist Outlook. Please send me: 1 year's subscription (24 issues): E13 She months" subscription (12 issues): 57 O Internment without trial in the north of Ireland looks to be back on the political agenda again, nearly seventeen years after being abandoned by the Wilson government in 1975. As we go to press, reports suggest that high-ranking RUC and Army chiefs, alongside Loyalist politicians and the Northern Ireland Police Federation, are strongly urging government ministers to bring back a desparate and brutal tactic.
Internment would be a massive gamble for the British state. When it was last used, from 1971 to 1975, there was both a huge escalation of sectarian violence and also the emergence of a mass civil rights movement.
But it could be a gamble that the Tories find themselves forced to take, despite the fact that Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, was told quite starkly by the RUC and Army last week that the 30,000-strong security forces could not cope without the reintroduction of interEurope: 1year E18 CJ Six months E10 Rest of the World: 1 yoar 22C1 Six months £12 O To Sce to know more about Socialist Outook C I include a donation of C. Name.
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Please retur to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU nment. Already, estra troops have been despatched to the six counties.
Last week's bombing in St. Albans and press speculation over anticipated wave of Christmas bombings, may fuel the fires of reaction further, on both sides of the water.
Bringing back internment without trial will not be easy though. The British state already stands accused of gross infringements of civil liberties and repressive torture practices at the Castlereagh Remand Centre, as a result of evidence presented to the United Nations.
Socialists and Irish solidarity activists should be preparing now to build a broad-based mass campaign against any reinstatement of internment, as well as the routine repression of the British army in the Six Counties. Printed by Tridant Press, Edenbridge, Kent. Published by Idolare Ltd, 377 City Road, London EC IV