THE BLOODY Sunday massacre and its aftermath provide important lessons to leam in the current "peace process".
On January 30 1972, British paratroops shot dead 13 unarmed civilians in Derry.
One person died later from his wounds.
The Civil Rights Movement which ose ie orv us ou oar nau ool lised thousands against discrimination in jobs and housing was literally shot off the streets.
Bloody Sunday showed the determination of the British ruling class to defend the Orange State literally to the death.
The mainly nationalist and Catholic protesiers arew taice main conciusions from Bloody Sunday.
First, the Six County State could not be reformed and therefore had to be GesTaNe Second the real struggle was against the British to drive them out of Ireland because they stood behind the unionists.
Thirdly, a large section of nationalists. particularly the youth, joined the IRA, believing that oaly military force could force British withdrawal.
The time berween Bloody Sunday and the IKA 19/4 ceaschire was tne most ferocious military and civilian casualties, sectarian murders and destructo or property in tho wooi confliet.
The North became a testing ground for Brigadier Frank Kitsons Low Intensity Operations as the Heath Governmore concerned about civil disorder because working class militancy was growing.
The British, already under pressure for interning hundreds of nationalists without trial in August 1971. responded to the angry worldwide upsurge following Bloody Sunday by abolishing the hated Stormont Government in March 1972 and installing direct rule from Westminster.
If any nationalists had the illusion that direct rule would end discrimination they were sadly mistaken. The sectorion state connot be reformed—-it must be smashed.
More than twenty years later, Catholie unemployment is still two and a half times that of Protestants.
And this is in a situation where more than 40 per cent of the workforce in the Six Counties is employed directly or indirectly by the British Goverment.
All of this casts an interesting light on the current "peace process"
The republicans were offered talks *within three months of a cessation of violence".
Yet 17 months after the ceasefire iney are sau excluoca trom talks aoou! a constitutional settlement.
Major and his unionist allies want the republicans not just to surrender but to accepe, in advance of the negotiations, that any agreement will be within the existing state framework In other words, the republicans are being asked to concede before even going into the negotiations exactly what unionists want-—an internal settement.
Nationalists and republicans are questioning more what exactly 25 years of struggle have brought if they end up with another settlement similar to that they thought had gone forever in 1972.
And even the 1974 Sunningdale Agreement cookco up by ricau and • destroyed by the Loyalists, offered power sharing and a Council of Ireland.
Sinn Feins ability to resist the Conservative and unionist onslaught is fatally undermined by their own acceptance of the unionist veto.
It is clear they would accept an inter. nal settlement as the oufcome of negotiations and seck to portray if as a "stepping stone" to unification.
But legal, constitutional and political constraints will prevent unification happening ever happening-even if they ever set to that stage They have to face up to the stark fact ,"REVOLUTION united Ireland.
Nor will the British force them to do so by withdrawing in the forceable future.
Returning to armed struggle is not the solution cither.
The sectarian state cannot be reformed—it must be smashed.
Sinn Fein and all nationalists should boycott Major and Trimble's proposed elections.
Trimble and the unionists know that if they sat down in talks tomorrow they could get a settlement which would meet their main demands.
And they are aware that the settlement would be countersigned by Dubhn in felumn for some cosmeac tovc in protecting nationalists in the Six Counties.
That they choose not to and that Major is willing to go along with them. shows an important aspect of unionism and the crisis of the British State.
The "no surrender" approach requires that enemies must not only be dead but securely buried as well.
In previous crises of de-colonisation the British ruling class were able to impose a solution even if that meant sacrificing a section of its own class in the interests of the class as a whole.
Major is incapable of doing that in Ireland without dividing the Tory Party from top to bottom and he also has the problem of a small parliamentary majority.
Blairs "me too-ism" means that the second team has no alternative.
Thus if, as scems likely in the long term, Majors Irish policy blows upand that could be literally-then that could detonate a political crisis in the whole runing crass One outcome of that could be war— in Ireland.
We should remember Bloody SunLaissez faire would not allow food