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No peace without freedom
Sharon Clarke questions the dominant response to the Warrington bomb
The British authorities and media responded to the Warrington bomb which
killed two boys in March by pointing the finger of blame at the British
left.
Alongside the familiar condemnations of the IRA came reports of a new police
offensive against 'extreme left-wing groups' (Sunday Times) or just
'Reds' (Sunday Telegraph) said to be suspected of involvement in
the IRA campaign in Britain. These stories smack of an attempt to find some
post-Cold War work for the idle hands of the British security services.
They should act as a warning sign of how the state is now seizing every
opportunity to silence dissent and extend its political control over British
society.
It is ironic that the authorities should seek to hold the British left responsible
for Warrington in this way. The problems which lead to such bombings certainly
do begin in Britain - but with the British government, not left-wing groups.
The authorities over here must bear ultimate responsibility for the casualties
which the Irish conflict creates on both sides of the Irish Sea.
'Evil psychos'
What is the true cause of the violence? The key phrases used to describe
the IRA in the post-Warrington discussion were 'evil psychopaths' and 'terrorists'.
Look at the bombing as a snapshot of destruction, in the way that the authorities
want us to, and those words might seem to make sense. But look at what happened
in Warrington in its proper context, and they do not.
The IRA has been conducting its military campaign in Britain and Ireland
for more than 20 years. There are people involved in the Irish republican
movement today who were not born when that campaign began. And they still
have the support of a large enough section of the nationalist community
in Northern Ireland to sustain their campaign, despite all of the measures
that the British state has taken against them.
How can all this be explained away as the work of a few 'evil psychopaths'?
Are we to believe that generations of Irishmen and women are somehow 'born
bombers'? Or that entire districts of Northern Ireland are populated by
violent lunatics?
Irish republicans must feel that they have good cause, to take such action
for so many years. And the cause is freedom. Freedom from being ruled by
a foreign power - Britain. Ireland may not be Africa or India, but British
rule on Irish soil remains a form of colonialism all the same. It is imposed
on the nationalist community against its will, and enforced in classic colonial
style by an occupying army of 30 000 troops and paramilitary police, backed
by draconian laws and no-jury courts.
Of course the authorities present things differently. In their version,
the British forces are neutral peace-keepers in a feud involving both republican
and Loyalist gangs. As the republican movement has become more isolated
of late, so the British have been better able to portray the conflict in
this way. The reality is, however, that there are no neutrals in Northern
Ireland.
Two sides
When it comes down to it, there are only two sides in the Irish War: those
who support British rule, and those who want to end it. On one side stand
the British forces and administrators, and the Loyalists fighting to protect
the relative privileges which British rule brings to their community (Catholics
are still more than twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants in Northern
Ireland). On the other side stand the nationalists, and the Irish republican
movement which thousands of them continue to support.
The fact that the Loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces are on
the same side can best be seen in the cases of collusion, as Fiona Foster
reports opposite. But even when the authorities disapprove of their sectarian
excesses, the Loyalist gangs terrorising the nationalist supporters of Irish
unity are effectively doing the British government's dirty work.
Whichever way you try to look at it, the British colonial presence in Northern
Ireland is the cause of the problem. The IRA campaign is only a consequence.
Those who are serious about finding a solution need to get at the root of
the conflict, not the symptoms. As has been said before in Living Marxism,
if there were no British guns in Ireland, there would be no Irish bombs
in Britain.
The British authorities seek to distract from their own responsibility for
the conflict in Northern Ireland by branding the IRA as 'terrorists'. It
is an emotive label. But what does it mean?
British law defines terrorism as 'the use of violence for political ends'.
Yet from the Falklands to the Gulf to Northern Ireland itself, the British
government is always using massive force for political ends. This is not
called terrorism. Obviously, then, it is not the violence which defines
whether something is a terrorist act, but the political end for which
it is used.
If you use violence in pursuit of the political end of protecting British
power, you are a soldier. If you do so in pursuit of the political end of
Irish freedom, you must be a terrorist.
Around the world, only the oppressed are accused of terrorism and political
violence. The oppressors are always called peace-keepers, policemen, righteous
crusaders. Typically, in March, the news headlines reported that Israel
was clamping down on the occupied territories after a 'wave of Arab violence'
had left 17 Jews dead since December. You had to look long and hard at the
reports to discover that the Israelis had killed at least 76 Palestinians
in the same period. In similar fashion, the British authorities and media
milk the two Warrington deaths for all that they are worth, while playing
down what is being done to Irish nationalists.
Strip away the hysteria and the prejudice, and the truth about the Irish
War is very different from what we have been led to believe. The British
authorities who now call for peace are responsible for causing and sustaining
the conflict. They must take the blame for the suffering which it creates.
A British withdrawal is the way to bring freedom to Ireland. And freedom
is the precondition for a peaceful solution.
'Business as usual'
While all eyes were focused on Warrington, few in Britain seemed to
notice a new wave of sectarian assassinations by Loyalist paramilitaries
in Northern Ireland. Fiona Foster reports on the background to the murder
campaign----and the evidence of collusion between Loyalist gangs and the
security forces
There are people in what is supposed to be part of the UK who cannot go
to bed at night without pulling steel shutters across their windows and
putting bars across double-locked doors. They fear for their lives from
gunmen who have murdered nearly 100 of their number since January 1990.
Yet their plight has not featured in the massive media hysteria about violent
crime.
Perhaps that is not surprising, since these people do not fit the media
stereotype of victims. They are Catholics from the nationalist community
of Northern Ireland. And far from looking to the police to protect them,
they believe that the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary collude
with the Loyalist death squads which murder their relatives, friends and
neighbours.
Having lived for years in Birmingham, Fiona O'Hagan might have found the
green fields of South Derry liberating. But when her husband stood for Sinn
Fein in the local council elections, they had to turn their new home into
a mini-fortress. Bernard's predecessor, John Davey, was one of several Sinn
Fein councillors shot dead in recent years. 'I made Bernard put flowery
wallpaper over the steel shutters in the bedrooms and paint the steel door,
to make them kind of blend in.'
While Fiona tried to make life as normal as possible for their three children,
Bernard did his best to stay alive. He varied his daily route to the college
where he taught and, to the delight of Unionist councillors, arrived at
and left council meetings at different times. 'We tried to protect the kids
from things. When they bent down to look under the car they were only imitating
their daddy - they didn't know what they were checking for.'
In their own home
In September 1991, as Bernard O'Hagan walked across the car park to work,
he was shot eight times by two unmasked gunmen who walked calmly into the
road and disappeared.
Anthony Fox from Dungannon has never made any secret of his opposition to
the military occupation of his country. For this he is subjected to constant
harassment by the British forces and regular death threats from Loyalist
paramilitaries. Last year his 65-year old father and 58-year old mother
were slaughtered in their own home by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
Anthony had left home two years earlier, after the RUC told the family that
the police files on Anthony and his brother had mysteriously 'fallen into
the hands' of Loyalist death squads. This kind of visit is now commonplace
in nationalist areas.
Anthony's brother-in-law was also murdered by Loyalists last January. Shortly
afterwards Anthony was told by RUC officers that he had been the intended
target of that attack. 'I see these attacks as part and parcel of Britain's
strategy to defeat republicans by deflecting them from fighting the Brits
and drawing them into a sectarian feud. In fact they make me and people
like me more determined to be rid of Britain.'
Anthony Fox, like many relatives of the victims of Loyalist attacks, is
convinced that the security forces colluded in the murder of his parents.
British soldiers are notorious for blazing away at teenage joyriders or
anybody else who fails to stop at checkpoints. Yet when a car seen to be
carrying armed men went through a roadblock on the night of his parents'
death, the Army simply put out a radio message to police patrols. Of 12
police cars in the Dungannon area that night 11 had apparently turned off
their radios. The one car that responded failed to find the armed men. Within
half an hour Anthony's parents were dead.
Fiona O'Hagan is also left wondering why soldiers of the Ulster Defence
Regiment were seen in fields photographing their home in the weeks before
Bernard's murder. Or how it was that the two men who shot her husband could
walk away so calmly down a road known for the heavy presence of police and
Army patrols.
Sick joke
Last year Northern Ireland minister Patrick Mayhew banned the Loyalist paramilitary
Ulster Defence Association (UDA), supposedly as a sign of the government's
will to deal with violence in an even-handed way. Coming soon after the
revelations that UDA killer Brian Nelson was a serving member of the British
Army while he planned the murder of Catholics with the full knowledge of
his Army handlers, the ban was a sick joke for many nationalists.
The UDA is clearly not too concerned about this cosmetic ban, judging by
the 'Business as usual' sign displayed in their Belfast HQ. Their confidence
is well placed. Despite a few arrests not one Loyalist has been charged
with murder in connection with the killing of 23 Catholics in the mid-Ulster
area since 1990.
Meanwhile the security forces arrest republicans on trumped up charges,
so fingering them for the Loyalists. Three men from Cookstown were recently
charged with 'going equipped for terrorism', after being found in possession
of a roll of insulating tape and a pair of washing up gloves. When the three
were released on bail, a UVF death squad was despatched to execute one of
them. When the UVF discovered that the man they murdered was a friend of
the intended victim who had been helping to decorate his house, they said
they would be back for their real target.
The British authorities are keen to bury any suggestion of collusion. When
Channel 4's Despatches programme revealed the extent to which Loyalists
and RUC members had cooperated in sectarian murders like that of Belfast
lawyer Pat Finucane, it infuriated those intent on strengthening Britain's
image as a neutral peace-broker in Northern Ireland. Ben Hamilton, the researcher,
was arrested in a dawn raid at his home and charged under anti-terrorist
legislation with withholding information. Channel 4 and Despatches received
hefty fines.
War obscured
Barry McElduff, leading Sinn Fein member in Mid-Ulster, believes that the
government's sensitivity to allegations of collusion reflects a determination
to obscure the fundamental conflict in Northern Ireland. 'When the SAS were
shooting people in threes, sixes and eights, it was clear that the British
military were engaged in a war against the IRA. Having marginalised the
republican movement to some extent, they can now stand back and let the
Loyalists do the job for them. That way it looks like the paddies are fighting
among themselves and the Brits are only here to keep us apart.'
Not only did British Army intelligence pay Brian Nelson £200 a week
to work within the UDA, they also allowed him to bring in a consignment
of sophisticated modern weaponry from South Africa. It is estimated that
these weapons, which the British Army admitted to 'losing track of', have
already been used to kill 70 Catholics including those gunned down in the
indiscriminate attacks on the Ormeau Road and Old Park bookmakers in Belfast.
Belfast has borne the brunt of Loyalist attacks. Gerard McGuigan is the
Sinn Fein councillor for the Ardoyne, a nationalist enclave in North Belfast
notorious for indiscriminate killings of Catholics. 'We can't leave the
Ardoyne without going through a staunchly Loyalist area', says McGuigan.
'Loyalist gunmen can come in, shoot us and escape back to their own areas.
We have nowhere to run, we can't go beyond that street.
'The risk I run as a Sinn Fein councillor is not much greater than those
faced by the most apolitical Catholic. We're all legitimate targets to the
Loyalists. Since the war began in 1969 nearly 500 Catholics have been murdered
by Loyalists in North Belfast. I see it as a kind of community punishment.'
Rocket attack
The community is being punished for its continued support for the IRA in
its war against the British occupation. Sinn Fein hold three out of six
council seats for North Belfast. Days before the last local elections in
1989, McGuigan survived a Loyalist rocket attack on the Ardoyne Sinn Fein
office. Last year he and his family narrowly survived a gun and grenade
attack on his home. Just after I spoke to him, he was again a target of
Loyalist assassins during the latest spate of attacks in March.
When his home was attacked last year, an RUC/Army foot patrol was stopping
cars at the only entrance to the estate. Yet the police didn't arrive at
the McGuigan home for 45 minutes. The Ardoyne area is kept under constant
surveillance by the massive tower on top of the local barracks which allows
the police and Army to monitor every movement of this hostile community.
Yet Loyalist death squads appear to carry out their missions with impunity.
McGuigan experienced the 'even-handedness' of the British authorities when
his application for a gun licence for his personal protection was refused
by the RUC and the Home Secretary. 'Ken Kerr, a Unionist councillor who
has been convicted of arms offences and who to my knowledge has never suffered
an attempt on his life was on Channel 4 News brandishing a legally
held Browning automatic pistol. Here's me with no convictions and two [now
three] very close shaves with death and I'm refused.' Derry councillor Kerr
is a leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, widely considered to be a
political voice of the UDA.
McGuigan compares the role which Loyalist gangs play for Britain to president
FW De Klerk's sponsorship of Inkatha against the ANC in South Africa: 'It's
the old colonial device of divide and rule.'
Four more Catholic men (one an IRA member) were shot dead by Loyalist
gunmen on 25 March, as their van arrived for work in Castlerock, County
Derry
Reproduced from Living Marxism issue 55, May 1993
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