Free Citizen: no. 51, 25 September 1970

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25sept 1970

NEW POLICE CHIEF NAMED —

WE DON'T EXPECT ANY OF OUR READERS TO

LOSE MUCH SLEEP OVER SIR ARTHUR YOUNG'S

DEPARTURE. MOST PEOPLE HAVE BECOME A-

WARE THAT ARTFUL TONGUE'S GREATEST SKILL

WAS IN PRETENDING THAT THINGS WERE HAPPEN-

ING WHEN THEY WERE NOT -

IN GIVING the impression that the R.U.C. was about to become an unarmed, non political band of boys-inblue, while at the same time they carried out political arrests under the Criminal Justice Act, and a.vicious campaign of repression against groups opposed to the government.

And as for being unarmed: only last week the R.U.C.

received a consignment of up-to-date German pistols, and John Taylor assured the force that they would have arms whenever they needed them. Last week, the Unionist Party executive passed a vote of no-confidence in Chichester-Clark's handling of 'law and order' anc specifically criticised Shillington - Peacocke’s former mate that old Artful Tongue wants to get out while it is still possible to keep up pretences... Young. Ina matter of There can be no predays the report on the De- tences with Arthur Young's venney murder is due to successor, Deputy Chief Constable Graham Shillington. Shillington served for a year as deputy to the egregious swine Anthony Peacocke, who resigned last year after the 12th of August debacle. Shillington has been depu- COMMENTATOR emma or be published. It is believed that John Taylor, becoming impatient at the Ministry of Home Affairs, wants to use his power. It does not take much imagination to realise Last FiDAyY PRERED A VOTE THE UNIONIST OF No PRETY EXECUTWE.. Tecan i IN AgTHUR YOUNG, THEE IS NO

\BN FREELANO , TRUTH IN ED0RTS

AND CHI-CHI , THAT THE Pm, — since before thg present unrest began on October 5th 1968. No-one (other than an extreme right winger) can have the slightest confidence ina man who served unflinchingly as second-in-command.of.ths R..U.C.\durs ing October 1968, Burntollet, the Devenney murder, and the police riots in Bogside. Indeed Shillington went especially to Derry to be in charge of police over the August 12th period last year. tin that role it is Shillington who can be held responsible for police attrocities in Derry at that time. It was expected tast September that Shillington would have resigned along with his chief, Peacocke.

He did nothing of the sort. We may expect from now on that repression will wear a grimmer mask.

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By Their Friends... "Christian nationalism is an ally of National Socialism....... You can call this anti-democratic principle dictatorship if you wish. In Italy it is called Fascism, in Germany German National Socialism and in South Africa, Christian Nationalism.'' Who said it? The Mad Major while drunk? Well, no.

This is a quote from Balthazar Johannes Vorster, ruler of South Africa today , and who was imprisoned as a Nazicollaborator. And this is the man to whom Sir Alec Douglas Home, the human skull, _ts intent on selling arms. Why ?

Well, it's good for trade. Is it?

Our balance of trade with the racist South Africa has gone down considerably, we now import more from them than export to them, this arms deal wouldn't affect the balance because we'd have to take more S.A.

exports in return. Could it be that some of Sir Alec's fellow cabinet ministers have S. African interests?

Could be! Firstly there's Ulster's old friend Reggie Maudling. A few weeks ago we published an article about some of his shadier business interests.

Here are afew more. Our lovable home secretary is a director of A.E.1I./G.E.C. and Dunlop which have seven South African and three Rhodesian subsidiaries. Quintin Hogg is a‘director of Wellman Engineering Corporation who have a large S. African branch; Anthony Barber, chancellor of the .exchequer, is director of British Ropes Ltd. , parent company of African Wire Ropes of S.Africa. Duncan Sandys (the leader of the 'hang'em ~ and flog'em' brigade) is director of Ashanti Goldfields Corporation with no fewer than 22 Rhodesian associate companies and 11 S. African.

Lord Carrington, secretary of state for defence, is director of Barclays.

which has one S. African, and three Rhodesian subsidiaries. Four more cabinet ministers (Rippon, Noble, Walker and Lord Jellicoe all have large South African interests. What it all goes to prove is that money doesn't talk - IT SWEARS.

Capitalists and Imperialists don't give a damn whether you're green or orange, black or white, all they want is to exploit you - and to hell with principles. These men who will possibly soon be deciding the fate of Ulster are all exploiters of black S. Africans as well. You can't just fight Imperialism in one country - it's worldwide!

CONFERENCE

P.D. CONFERENCE ON SUNDAY

OP POP OST oe vi: ccodkes id. wor a.

COMBAT iT". SR. ik sv

FOR DETAILS MEMBERS SHOULD

RING ONE OF THE FOLLOWING

NOS;

669685, 615661, 665644, FREE CITIZEN 25th SEPTEMBER 1970, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Finlay live in the South Link chalets with their two children - one a baby of nine months, the other a boy three years old. They had been living in undescribable conditions in No.3 Moyssina Street: falling ceilings, the damp mildewing furniture, water had to be boiled before it could be used etc. The conditions had to be seen to be believed, and when the local C.D.C. saw the house they decided to move the Finlays out, and squatted them in Glasmullen Gardens.

It was then that the Housing Trust was moved to act - but not to offer them the keys to Glasmullen Gardens, or a house or flat elsewhere; digging deep into their miserable reserve of humanity the Housing Trust came up with the keys to one of the South Link chalets.

The Finlays accepted the offer rather than continue to live in fear of possible eviction as squatters and paid rent of £2 10s. a week despite the fact that other families who had just moved in were paying 12/6d. in rent - and despite the fact that the only heating provided an electric heater - was aggravating the three year old's chest condition. During troubles when the Andersonstown Housing Trust Offices were burned down the family were exposed to C.S. Gas.

HOUSING TRUST

NEGLECT

Both children were taken to hospital - the baby to the Children's hospital and then onto Purdysburn where she spent three weeks in an oxygen tent. Doctors at both hospitals have written to the Housing Trust requesting urgent rehousing of the Finlays who have been on the housing lists of both the corporation and Housing Bodies for 33 years.

Both bodies have done nothing whatsoever to alleviate their misery.

On the contrary the Housing Trust seems to be preparing to evict the family. In June Mrs. Finlay joined the rent-strikers in South Link.

On Tuesday of this week-a man from the Trust called Fry visited the family, took the rent book and as at present ''considering”’ their case. We dare him to evict them!

And incidentally Mr. Fry and Miss Reid et. al. when will you get round to even "considering" the fate of the rest of the families living in the chalets and shelter huts. When, for example, will you show some mercy to one of the Finlays neighbours who was burnt out last August and whose four month old baby died of pneumonia in the cold and damp wooden huts of South Link? Or to the family with the baby whose hand was chewed by a rat the size of a cat? When, Miss Reid, When?

BARONS BEWARE

The robber barons who control the Toome Eel Company have their hands in a great many people's pockets. Some of their thieving was exposed last Saturday when pickets were placed on the Company's office in Toome, the London headquarters of the eel thieves in Billingsgate, and the Corrib salmon fisheries in Galway which are owned by the same gang. The P.D. mounted the Toome picket, local Socialists the one in Gal way and the International Socialists and several P.D. members the one in London. The pickets demanded the return of Lough Neagh to the people and protested at the issue of summonses to 18 members of the P.D. for occupying the Company's office in Toome - the thieves using the law to protect their booty.

The picket at Toome had some useful results. The shipment of a large consignment of eels due to be moved on Saturday had to put off at considerable expense, and the archrobber himself, Kuijten, the head of the Company, spent most of his Saturday watching his premises together with Head Bailiffs Smyth and Chapples. Meanwhile two police cars, one land-rover, a car-load of plain-clothes men and reinforcements hiding in Toome barracks all ‘protected’ the company's property against ten peaceful picketers. Nothing could better prove that the R.U.C. are the exploiters' friends than the constant guard on the robber barons' illgotten gains.

But the thieves are being hunted down. There will be bigger and better protests soon. The barons' homes have been discovered and contacts made with Dutch socialists to beard Kuijten in his den.

Soon nowhere will be safe from the people's wrath. I would like to become a member of the People's Democracy. I enclose a fee of 5 shillings. All letters, gifts, correspondence etc. to:- 88, Ladybrook Park, Belfast. To remit sums of money you can use our giro number: 68 101 2005

FREE CITIZEN 25th SEPTEMBER 1970

PALESTINE — THE STRUGGLE GOES ON

joe For the last few weeks, at first due to the hi-jackings, and now because of heavy fighting, the Middle East has dominated the world's news media. King Hussein of Jordan is reported to be sitting ona very shaky and temporary throne, the Palestinian guerrillas have won control of the major towns in the north, Amman is in ruins, and the American forces are poised to swoop like a vulture on its prey.

Yet there has been very little attempt to analyse the background to the current troubles. This article is an attempt to rectify that omission. From the late nineteenth century there was a growth of Zionist organisations demanding the establish ment of a Jewish National state in Palestine. Such demands received a boost from the British government in 1917 when Lord Balfour, in a letter to Lord Rothschild gave the cabinet's blessing to such an undertaking. They were strengthened in 1920, when the territories of de« feated Turkey were carved up among the victorious allied powers and Britain was granted the mandate for Palestine. ' From that time onwards, a steady immigration of Jews into Palestine took place. It should be stressed that they were welcomed and helped by their new Arab neighbours and no religious or political discord was evident. Following World War IU, and the horrors of Hilter's 'final solution', the Conscience of the world, especially Britain and the U.S., was stricken by the masses of Jewish refugees - though not to the extent of lifting their own immigration controls. Through the medium of the newly-formed United Nations, they established a Jewish State of Israel in 1947, by partitioning Palestine -refusing the Arab proposal to set up a binational state. Naturally this decision was resisted by the Palestine people who saw no reason to give up their homeland to solve the consciences of European and American politicans. They resisted with arms, but were opposed by a force - many of them American Jewish World War II veterans which was armed with surplus World War II weapons and so was capable of defeating an ill-armed mainly peasant population.

massacre Not content with defeating them militarily they drove them out of their homes and off their land by terrorist tactics. Gangs like the Stern and Irgun killed every man, woman and child, as in the arab village of Deir Yassin. This massacre is now officially denounced by the Israeli government (though they still pay official pensions to the members of these gangs). But quigley

\9G7 WAR

RePuBLic (aver) the official forces themselves, similar escapades. The unit which took Lydda and Ramlah, ed the towns. Since 1948 about one and a half million Palestinian refugees have and other Arab countries. Their numbers have been augumented as a result of various expansions of Israili territory, the latest being after the war in June 1967.

by the world, and devoid of hope, these refugees have sat in their camps and, with a few exceptions, resigned themselves to their fate.

But their children are not so defeatist. Zionist enemy Now in their ceens, twenties and thirties, they have formed themselves into guerrilla organisations such as Al Fatah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It is these guerrilla groups, rather than the official Arab government forces, which have engaged the Zionist enemy. It is these same guerrillas who have been attacked by Hussein's new military junta in Jordan. To many it is inconceivable that Arab should fight Arab. But the Palestinians' struggle is a struggle for land, and those who struggle for it are those who were driven from it. Hussein's struggle is to maintain a corrupt and rotten monarchy in power, a monarchy which

RR OE EE LL

the Haganah, were accomplices in under the command of Moshe Dyan, drove the populations (over 30,000 each) out at gunpoint and then sacksubsisted in U.N. camps in Jordan Ignored has consistently sold out not only the Palestinians, but the Jordanian peoples. Hence Hussein's eager acceptance of the American 'peace' plan for the Middle East - a plan which ignored the twenty year old plight of the dispossessed Palestinians. The popular press and the T.V.

news bulletins have squawked with rage about the guerrillas "wrecking the Middle East plans". They are doing nothing of the sort. They are wrecking, and quite rightly so, an attempt by the reactionaries to sell out the Palestinian cause at the first sight of an American dollar.

'King' Hussein and fellow feudal monarch 'King' Feisal of Saudi Arabia have always been content to allow their countries and their resources to be exploited by foreign , (U.S. and British) economic exploitation in order to guarantee that the military imperialist arm of those states could be called on to support their tottering regimes.

Now the real implications of such support is evident. Britain has sent commando units to Cyprus.

The U.S. has placed its paratroopers on emergency stand-by. Obviously they intend to intervene if Hussein falls. Our position is clear. We support the struggle of a people who have been intimidated and driven from their homes. We attack people like Hussein and Nasser who claim to uphold the rights of the Palestinians while merely using their plight as a means of diverting their own people's eyes from the problems at home. The Palestinian struggle is not Anti-Jewish. It is Anti-Zionist.

It is to establish a secular socialist state in Palestine where all people will have equal rights and opportunities. The parallels between their struggle and ours is obvious.

As socialists, we must look forward to the defeat of Zionist entrepreneurs and Arab monarchrists,: and the victory of Palestinians - Arab and Jew - in the establishment of a Palestinian Workers Republic.

campaign... The P.D. campaign against the Criminal Justice Act with. its mandatory sentences continues, with five meetings this weekend. We welcome the fact that the Republican have also taken up the demand to repeal the Crim inal Justice Act. Meetings this weekend will be as follows: Movement now EBPSON sicees sues Sains .:3.00pm Strabane. ... nce anvicw sce 3.30pm Bot 9 a5 7s ee ae ee 8.00 pm GOS SIOUG 5 .5:.5:5.5,35s, 415.58. 8.50 8.00pm POMEPKOY e635 gs :028 1

On Saturday 27th June, Orange parade, then returned after an Three people died. and could have prevented, bling regime was Much later, five men from the Hooker Street area were charged with 'causing an explosion! i.e.

firing guns. The police opposed bail but a high court granted it.

These men could return to their wives and children to await the trial months later. But this didn't suit the R.U.C. On their way from the court they were rearrested and charged with murder, Now this poses an interesting question - why weren't they charged with that originally? Obviously because the police had no evidence. Certainly the people of Ardoyne know that this is clearly police’victimization, an attempt to appease the Orange side who, for once, suffered more casualties. It is not our function to take sides in riots which, regrettably have sectarian overtones, but a few points must be made to counteract some of the more blatant distortions of the police at the recent inquests.

Firstly, the British Army was in charge of security on the Hooker Street side of the road - an army not noted for its partiality towards the people of that area, and yet they fired the obscene C.S. gas indiscriminately at the mob of people who were trying to get IN to Hooker Street and then into Hooker Street itself. Clearly they're not so happy about the police story of a '"muderous ambush''. And what about the men and Just before the June elections when the Mad Major was trying to convince Uncle Heath as to the credibility of the Unionist Party's new reformed face, Paisley tore the shroud away from it and revealed it in all its putrefying nakedness.

He stated then that not only had he made an electoral pact with the ‘Imperial Wizard' of the Orange Order Corporal 'Either' Orr, and ‘no Mugs’ Maginnes (for which he received grateful thanks), but that he had even done a deal with Chichi's brother in Derry, Robin the Poo. Amid the squawks of anquish and rage from the Unionist camp, Paisley then named the names of the men involved in the deal - Bond, Guy, Glover and Abernethy. Surprise, surprise they turn out to be the same 'faceless' men who deprived Derry of the new University.

Chi-chi Mark II screamed hysterically that it was ail lies and called for a full-scale investigation by the a crowd attacked Hooker four residents received gunshot wounds.

interval of stone-throwing.

The incident was all too typical but the Mad Major's crum., in no position to oppose masters and curb this kind of parade.

IMPARTIAL INQUIRY

tet nee eee ee FREE CITIZEN 25th SEPTEMBER 1970

AFTERMATH AT ARDOYNE

following a provocative and was Street Fire its Orange women in Hooker Street who received gunshot wounds before anyone else? Since when did a ''Peaceful religious procession" have gunmen in its ranks? ed have a right to defend themselves.

vlearly the picture is confused to an outsider, but the point at issue here is not. When there is virutally no evidence against a person he is entitled to bail, no matter how serious the charge, otherwise he may be acquitted - and yet have served six months in jail on remand!

Especially obnoxious is the practice of rearresting people who have already been granted bail. a mockery of the courts (who've already been doing their best to discredit themselves anyway) and smacks of the South African 90 day law. There you can be jailed for 90 days with no charges being preferred and rearrested for another 90 days immediately on your release. The only difference here is that having failed to produce sufficient evidence for one charge, another is invented. From all the evidence we have these men are innocent. Ona matter of principle we must give solidarity to these men who are being used as scapegoats. Army and police victimization is becoming even more commonplace. There is a time for a stand to be made!

Ulster Unionist Council. The inquiry reported its findings last week. The only comment made by the Unionist Party's secretary Bailie was as follows: "I cannot say anything more about it. The inquiry was conducted by the Prime Minister himself, as leader of the party, and as far as I know there is no intention to say anything more about it." We wonder why! rma Bk ee

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FREE CITIZEN by post Subscription £2 1 year (first £1 6 months class) 10/- 3months Airmail 50/- 1 year Write to 88 Ladybrook Pk Belfast People who are attack- This makes Forces : Favourites The following article was written before the resignations of Messrs.

Freeland and Young. Those who are desirous for unanimity between the gallant forces protecting us from 'extremists of all hues' will doubtless be as distressed as we were to learn of the ‘dispute’ between Sir Arthur Young and General Freeland in the latter's Lisburn office. Incredulous bystanders speak of 'fisticuffs' and certainly relations since have been, to say the least, 'strained'. The row was, it seems, over the withdrawal of the army and the rearm-_ ing of the police. Freeland wants to withdraw 5,000 troops and advocates giving the police back their guns. Young opposes both, knowing the partisan leanings of many of his merry men. Young, however, to the jubilation of the right wingers will be returning to London soon while Freeland's position is none too secure either - he is due to be replaced by General Crum (sic) before next February. Although it may be hard to believe, it is widely rumoured that even more soldiers hate Freeland than policemen hate Young. Anyone wishing to receive confirmation or denial of these malicious rumours should ring Lisburn 6712 and ask the answering soldier what he thinks of this vile rumour.

Alternatively, the police rumour spokesman can be reached at Belfast 586464. Let us know what they say.

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