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Not content with General Freeland's shoot-to-kill order, the British Army has now announced its new order: "shoot first, ask questions later".

Major Farrar-Hockly announced last weekend that anyone in a crowd where a petrol bomb had been thrown is liable to be shot. From now on soldiers will not even have to invent a petrol bomb as they did in the case of Danny O'Hagan. Needless to say, none of the soldiers guilty of these murders will even have to appear at an inquest. As usual a brief 'statement' from a ‘Corporal A' will be read and murder will be sanctioned by the courts The way in which murder can be committed and covered up by the forces of the Crown has bred great resentment among the working people of Belfast. There is no need to invent "outside agitators" or "minute minorities" to explain antiarmy riots, as army officers and one R.C. bishop chose to do in statements issued last weekend.

Major 'License-to-kill' Hockly, General 'Shoot-to-kill' Freeland, and Major Spurgeon (commanding the Royal Marines) all spoke in quick succession about "some outside organisation" being responsible for the Ardoyne riots; and in a sermon, which dovetailed in nicely with the British army statements, Dr. Philbin blamed "a minute number of older people”.

The fact is that only an English Sunday newspaper could believe that "eighteen IL.R.A. men from across the border" could be responsible for rioting which went on for five or six ‘hours on two successive nights. sensible person could for a moment accept that riots on this scale could continue in a residental area without the support of the local people.

That is not to say that the local people wanted to start riots. They did not. But week after week the working class people in one area of Belfast or another are having riots thrust upon them by the agressive pig-headed behaviour of the British troops. A few weeks ago, after a relatively minor incident, thousands of homes on the Shankill were bombarded by C.S. gas cannisters. When people's homes come under attack they are completely justified in defending themselves and driving off the attacker, whether that attacker be a sectarian mob, or in the case of all the recent riots in Belfast, the so-called peace-keeping British army.

Last weekend's troubles were sparked off when a British soldier shot three people without even the excuse of provocation. Instead of at once withdrawing after such a fiasco, the officer in charge ‘apologised’ to the wounded through a loudhailer, and then proceeded to clear the streets - or try to. ByZ the following day the whole questio TO KILL of the shooting had conveniently been forgotten, and the I.R.A. bogeyman could be introduced to g cover up for the British Army's bullying incompetence.

If British officers want to blame "outsiders" they should ask themselves from what part of Ardoyne (or, indeed, Ireland) do the 500 Royal Marines now occupying that area come from. Only the most could blame "outsiders" while being responsible for saturating Ardoyne with British troops. It is also the height of hypocrisy to condemn people for defending themselves with primitive home-made Vasu moves into an area with ombs when the British army armoured vehicles, water cannon, tear gas grenades, high-powered rifles, rubber bullets and machine guns to name but some of their weaponry.

The single most effective gesture shat troops could make towards the G restoring of peace is to get out of working class areas and stay out.

Constant patroling by armed troops heightens tension. Most of the riots in the past few months have been anti-army rather than sectarian. The barbed-wire 'peace' line permanently marks sectarian divisions and makes the growth of working class unity more difficult.

But, then, the present regime are hardly interest in working class unity. They appear more interested in crushing all opposition than in granting any reform. A large 'mixed' crowd protesting Zabout increased bus fares in Belfast No Alast Tuesday were horrified to see a military water cannon patrolling menancingly up and down Royal Avenue: the demonstration was watched by soldiers with sten-guns: a platoon of troops in full riot gear, gas grenades at the ready, was standing by 200 yards away in Hastings Street, and not surprisingly provoked some incidents with those returning from the demonstration.

This type of intimidation must be stopped. P.D. will mount a public campaign (similar to our campaign against the Public Order Act) against the oppressive military presence in working class areas.

One word of caution: this article does not support the idea that rioting of itself is the best way to oppose the presence of troops, or their blundering behaviour. Far from it. Opposition to an oppressive occupying army is only successful if it has widespread public support. And the way to gain that is by carrying out widespread public demonstrations against the troops and public being | heir blunders.

At present ther > much public Watssatietaction W ith the troops' behaviour. But t will require a political campaign to make this disSELL OUT Zz Last Saturday night the P.D. held a meeting in Toome to protest at the savage sentences meted out to 18 P.D. members by the hatchet-man Magistrate Shearer in Magherafelt over a week ago. These sentences were for taking |-part in a sit-in at the offices of the Zz Toome Eel Fisheries. Speakers castigated Shearer for being a Unionist hack, and a supporter of blood-sucking foreign imperialists, and they pledgéd the support of the Peoples Democracy in the struggle to drive out capitalists, both native and foreign, from this country.

One of the more interesting happenings at the meeting was a discussion engaged in by two members of the P.D. and a local Green Tory who said that the people of Toome did not welcome the P.D.'s campaign for the expropiation of Lough Neagh. He said that Lough Neagh was going to be bought over by the businessmen around the Lough. Thus it seems that the canr paign by the P.D. in trying to get rid of the London businessmen who at present own Lough Neagh is going to benefit a lot of local capitalY ists who have sat back like scaveng| ers waiting to see what they could steal.

Let these so-called republicans and green capitalists beware! P.D. has called for the expropiation of Lough Neagh from ALL capitalists, to be controlled by the people around |.ough Neagh who earn their living with the sweat of their labour. The P.D. does not believe that the lot of the fishermen and small farmers west of the Bann will be improved one iota by changing the control of the resources of this country from international exbrought about in this country by driving ALL these blood-sucking leeches and parasites out, and making sure they never return by building a Workers Republic.

A final word on the Green Tory comment about the people of Toome. The working people of Toome have Z supported the P.D. since it began and even more-so now that it is socialist. Certainly the capitalists around Toome, like capitalists everywhere, detest everything we stand for. They would not be cap italists if they supported us. Ww SSK satisfaction felt. In the face of such a capaignarmy propagandists will be unable to talk smugly about "senseless violence". Such a campaign can also expose the depressed conditions in which people are forced to live in in the ghettoes. It can also highlight the repressive machinery of courtroom perjury and mardatory prison sentences to which so many young people are delivered for the simple 'crime' of defending their homes.

BY OUR LURGAN CORRESPONDENT Take Jim Carson, Mayor of LurHEL: CITIZEN 6th NOVEMBER 1970-

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