disarm and return to barracks if a cease fire was declared in the six counties?
Kieran Mac an Ultaigh raises the question London and Dublin governments are afraid to answer.
MUCH has been said by politicians and the media about the killings carried out by paramilitaries in the North of Ireland after the tragic deaths on the Shankill and in Greysteel.
The British and Irish gevernments still refuse to accept Sinn Fein (representing more than one in eight of the electorate) as a legitimate political party and allow them to be included in any future negotiations until they either condemn the IRA's armed struggle or the IRA calls a permanent cease fire.
The British governmeni are refusing to offer anything substantial in return for this cease fire. On the contrary they are putüng increased pressure on the Irish government to end its constitutional claim to the Six Counties.
But what seems to have been ignored in London and Dublin and also by the leaderships of the respective trade union and labour movements is the role of the security forces in the six counties.
The security forces are not neutral but are the paramilitary wing of the British government. Since the beginning of the recent troubles they have operated in tandem with loyalist death squads (UFF/UVF), supplying weapons from South Africa through covert agents and providing photographs of suspected leading republicans.
The imposition of the Falls Road curfew as early as the summer of 1970 exposed the idea that the security forces were mere peace-keepers. This was soon followed by internment without trial, and Bloody Sunday at the beginning of 1972, when 14 unarmed Catholics were shot dead during an anti-internment demonstration in Derry.
'Shoot to kill'
ANAL Since then the army and police have killed countless nationalists, many of them children, through random 'shoot to kill' policy and by plastic bullets. Virtually all of those murdered were unarmed and many had no connection with the republican movement. Only a tiny number of police and soldiers have ever faced charges over any of these killings.
Like the loyalists, the security forces view the entire nationalist community as hostile and dangerous and seem to believe that 'the only good Catholic is a dead Catholic, shoot first ask questions later'.
'Relatives for Justice' (RFJ) was set up to highlight the farce of British neutrality and to seek prosecutions and compensation. RFJ is a non-sectarian organisation which eventually aims to prosecute the British government in the European Court of Human Rights:
Pattern 'We're trying to ... show a clear pattern over the years so that when we go to Europe they can't say well this is a one off case because we are going to have hundreds of cases, one after the other, so that as soon as they knock back one we'll have another one to replace it...
Many of the cases highlighted by RFJ have been taken up by Amnesty International and Liberty.
Recently Anne Bradley from RFJ toured the Midlands doing interviews, talking to MPs, MEPs and local councillors, and speaking at public meetings. Anne's first husband, Tony McAtarsney, was assassinated by the UVF in 1983 solely because he was a Roman Catholic. Anne has learned to accept this loss with some difficulty. Tony was running a fish and chip business in a loyalist area of Belfast, and was thus regarded as a legitimate target.
Anne remarried a few years later to another Catholic, John McNeill. In 1990 John agreed to sit in a stolen car while two friends robbed a betting shop in West Belfast. Two undercover SAS soldiers first killed the two robbers, firing around 15 bullets into each of them. They then turned on John firing one shot into his head from a distance of twenty four inches followed by another four shots into his body.
John was unarmed - it was first degree murder, yet the soldiers identity has been kept secret and neither has been prosecuted. At most John should have had to face a couple of years in jail for his part in the robbery, not summary execution.
Since becoming involved in RFJ, Anne has had her home raided several times by members of the security forces who, on one occasion fractured her arm in two places and broke her nose. Her children have also faced harassment.
There are numerous other examples of what the security forces mean by peace keeping in the Six Counties. At least six Catholics, under the age 18, have been killed by plastic bullets fired by mernbers of the security forces.
Of the 14 Catholics murdered on Bloody Sunday, five were under the age of 18. Of the several hundred people killed by the police and army in the Six Counties since 1969, the vast majority were Catholics and 127 were children.
No prosecution Only in a couple of cases has any member of the security forces been prosecuted for any of these deaths, and even fewer convicted - a fact conveniently forgotten by the numerous so-called peace groups who protested over the tragic deaths caused by the Warrington bombing.
In all there are almost 30,000 memthe Six counties, concentrated almost exclusively on the nationalist community which totals about 600,000 or 40 per cent of the population. In total the British government spends f4 billion per year propping up the northern state.
Despite this Catholic unemployment is two and a half times as high as Protestant unemployment per head of population. Including remand prisoners, there are almost 1,600 people in prison in the Six Counties, two thirds of whom are republicans, each prisoner costing the state approximately £70,000 per year. Proportionally this represents the highest prison population anywhere in Western Europe.
Most socialists and trade unionists in Ireland and Britain support the statusquo or at best some form of devolved government in the Six Counties. Very few take a clear anti-imperial stance, their condemnations are often aimed at republicans and rarely against the British government and its agents.
The Six Counties is an undemocratic state and should be condemned as such. Campaigns such as Relatives for Justice and Equality (which highlights discrimination in employment), are attempting to show the extent of human and civil rights abuses in the North of Ireland.
Censorship and the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which is aimed almost exclusively at the Irish community in Britain, are other examples of unjust draconian measures used to stifle debate on Ireland.
Peace without justice is. no peace at all. The exclusion of parties such as Sinn Fein, which represents key sections of the oppressed, means that no amount of discussion on the future of Ireland can deliver a lasting peace.
Secular solution
In the end only a united secular socialist Ireland can achieve this, for only in such a state will people feel physically and economically secure, with equality and basic political and civil rights guaranteed.
It is vital that rank and file trade union and labour movement activists in Ireland and Britain take up the issues of discrimination and civil and human rights abuses in the north of Ireland.
The British government and its agents are not neutral. Only their immediate withdrawal from the Six Counties will lead to a lasting peace. All socialists should campaign vigorously for such a goal. • Relatives for Justice and Equality can be contacted through Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU or the Troops Out Movement, BM TOM, London WCIN 3XX.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 53, November 27 1993, Page 7