used by the press to describe the spate of killings in northern Ireland. The image conjured up is one of crazed sectarian killers on both sides. This is a hypocritical lie, part of the 25-year old disinformation campaign about Ireland.
The starting point of the present wave of killings was not the IRA bombing of the UDA headquarters in the Shankill Road. That bombing, however foolish in its disregard for the possibility of civilian casualties, was an attempt to assassinate the leadership of the UFF loyalist death squads.
These death squads, and those of the UVF, have been responsible for over 60 per cent of all deaths in the Six Counties this year - and that in a country where there is a military struggle going on against British imperialism.
One hundred and forty six people have been assassinated by loyalist killers since 1988.
Military
IRA attacks, by contrast, are in most cases against the military, those who work for the military or against the loyalist death squads.
The UFF and UVF regard all members of the Catholic nationalist community as 'guilty' and thus fair game for murder.
The Shankill bombing was a response to dozens of murders of Catholic civilians by the UFF. The retaliatory UFF killings at the Rising Sun bar at Greysteel were typical of the callousness of the loyalist death merchants.
The two thousand-strong turnout for the funeral of the IRA volunteer killed in the bombing was a sign of the sympathy in the nationalist community for an attempt to take defensive action to halt the sectarian murders.
Doubtless the Shankill bombing was born out of frustration in the IRA at its inability to effectively defend the nationalist community against the sectarian killings. This failure is no surprise.
The military situation makes it absolutely impossible for the IRA to patrol the streets and mount an armed defence of them, even if the IRA had that ambition. The Catholic areas are wide open to murderous night-time Bombing the Shankill Road on a Saturday afternoon almost inevitably resulted in civilian deaths.
This was a political disaster for the same coin. an all-Ireland dimension. Adams in talks with Hume republican movement, enabling the government and the press to present the IRA and UFF as two sides of the Loyalist sectarian killings have a political purpose. That purpose is to ensure the loyalist veto on any attempt at a political solution which has Every time the loyalists feel politically threatened, attacks on the nationalist community escalate.
Collusion between British state DAY SIGNERS paramilitaries has been proved over many years; the names and addresses of republican sympathisers are handed over to the killers as part of the 'low-intensity warfare' strategy, to terrorise, intimidate and demoralise the nationalist community. The response of Major's government to the crisis has been to give further political ground the two main loyalist parties, the Ulster Unionists and the Democratic Unionists.
The proposals agreed in the dialogue between Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and SDLP leader John Hume, widely reported to imply an end of the IRA military struggle in return for a place at the negotiating table (although Adams has denied this), have been rejected out of hand.
Censorship
Further censorship of republican views in Britain is being considered. These are the typical responses of an imperialist power.
Nothing will come of John Major's promises to bring forward his own plans for peace talks, because nothing the government is prepared to consider deals with the root causes of the strife - the denial of Irish national rights, and the oppression of the nationalist community.
British socialists must continue to insist that there is no British solution, and that British imperialism offers no answers for the Irish people.
continent-wide and that this will result in huge new struggles.