Free Citizen: Vol. 2 no. 9, 27 November 1970

= FREE

CITIZEN

REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER AT THE POSTOFFICE

NEWSPAPER OF THE

PEOPLES DEMOCRACY

PRICE

WEEKLY FRI.

27 NOV 1970

‘ARMY BRUTALITY’

Shankill inquiry report accuses British military police of planned attack

"TWO MILITARY POLICE SUD-

DENLY CHARGED INTO THE

CROWD AND DRAGGED OUT TWO

YOUTHS"; "THERE WAS NO JUST-

IFICATION FOR THESE ARRESTS";

"GREAT PROVOCATION FROM

MILITARY POLICE"; ALLEGAT-

IONS OF ARMY BRUTALITY IN-

CLUDING THE BEATING OF A

PREGNANT WOMAN; ALLEGAT-

IONS THAT INNOCENT BYSTAND

‘ERS AND SHOPPERS WERE

ARRESTED: THESE ARE SOME

PHRASES FROM A SHOCK REPORT

PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY.

The report shocks because of its precise description of British Army brutality, but it shocks even more because it was produced by two Unionists, one at present an M.P, and the other a former M.P.

Only the strongest public indignation on the Shankill Road could have forced two 'loyalist' representatives to put their names to a report like this which is so highly critical of the forces of the Crown. The report contains the findings of a Peoples Tribunal held shortly after the weekend's rioting during which the British Army launched a massive attack against the Shankill Road community. . The tribunal heard witnesses who told of the now~ familiar army attacks on everyone within sight. "During that part of the route the military police continued to arrest indiscriminately, including women and men doing their weekly shopping and in no way concerned with the footballers or their followers, five such shoppers gave evidence at the inquiry: two ladies and three men. One lady, Mrs. Mer Clean, suffering from angina, shopping with her daughter, was at the corner of Hopeton Street. Her.

daughter was with her. A load of military police in a Land Rover came up. At that time her daughter, who is an epileptic, took ill. Her ‘ finement. brother put his arm round her and the second brother put his arm round his mother. A military police man grabbed her by the arm and another kicked her. She was knocked down and took a heart attack and became unconscious.

ambulance was sent for. "Mrs. McClean produced photographs of the marks on her arm and leg taken on the following Tuesday. The daughter was pregnant and within six weeks of con- The military police beat up and arrested both sons. They tried to arrest the daughter and dragged her along. She took an epileptic fit and was left lying on the road. The ambulance arrived and the daughter was removed. On the following Tuesday she gave premature birth to her baby."

NOT SECTARIAN

The Peoples Tribunal was a good idea. It enabled the people of acommunity to discuss what had happened quickly, without red tape, and fairly. (We have Frank Gogarty's word for that.) Even the British Army were represented - although for some reason they declined to give evidence. The report has no sectarian hysteria; indicating (as P.D. has often said) that fewer working class people on the Shankill are taken in by Paisley's sectarian rantings than is often supposed. Indeed, the report of the Peoples Tribunal is a good deal less concerned with sectarian attitudes to things than the rec ent publication of the C.C.D.C.

"Law and Orders". If it does nothing else, the report may jolt a few workers on the Shankill into seeing that the same type of military oppression has also been carried out against other communities - like the Falls and Ardoyne. Perhaps after reading it, some Shankill workers will begin to sense what it is like to be a Bogsider. And if the report of the Shankill Peoples Tribunal helps to create a sense of working class solidarity against the inhuman force of the British Army, then (whatever the intentions of Messrs McCoy and Boal) it will have done a great service to the working class movement in Ireland. Keep this picture for your personal rogues gallery. It is of David Corbett who has just been appointed f as Assistant Chief Constable of the

RTC.

Corbett has figured prominently in several police riots: he was in | charge of police in Derry on January 4th 1969, the day of the Burntollet ambush when drunken police under his command ran riot in Bogside, He is also remembered for the fine way he dealt with Peoples Democracy in Enniskillen in June 1969, when he had 54 people arrested, including one who, Corbett alleged, | was causing a breach of the peace by carrying a placard - which had nothing written on it!

OF SIN

Last week saw funds. £800 public largesse = in. €41, P.D. protest against Ardglass in June. These claims are totally bogus, in all cases but two. Chief amongst those police guilty of thuggery and later perjury were 425 Lyttle, who was so out of control that his own colleagues had to drag him off some of his victims and 1307 Walker, the infamous testicle stretcher. Both these veterans a criminal abuse involving the misappropriation of The recipients of this were policemen allegedly injured during the cement and any injuries suffered by these gallant officers are either selfinflicted, imaginary, or the result of them getting too close to their psychotic colleague, Constable 425, Trevor Lyttle. The P.D. demonstrators were assaulted by some members of the riot squad and arrested for no cause - even the notorious Walmsley acquitted two members and judge Brown acquitted a further one and reduced the sentences FREE CITIZEN 27th NOVEMBER 1970 Six scabs at received £125! - presumably for services rendered to the state. Another perjurer to be suitably rewarded (£150) was Edward Cowan of Bessbrook - perhaps in compensation for the fact that the man he tried to jail, Dermot Kelly, was acquitted when judge Brown reluctantly had to accept that Sgt. Ferguson, Finaghy Road South, and constables Cowan and Lyttle were telling lies - 546 Cecil Ferguson also received £100.

missing martyr Strangely, the one man who claimed to have been assaulted by no less than five P.D. members, including two girls, Inspector McFarland, hasn't received a penny as yet, either because he is of sterner stuff than the weaklings and perjurers under his command, or because there wasn't a scratch on him. Most disturbing is that no non-police witnesses were called to testify as to how these officers received their non-existent injuries or to testify to the fact that Messrs I would like to become a member of the People's Democracy. I enclose .a fee of 10 shillings. Dackipirerst Ss SE EE. SA POG Sele FR i A ER ces All letters, gifts, correspondence etc. to:- 88, Ladybrook Park, Belfast.

‘NEW MEMBERSHIP CARDS FOR

THE YEAR NOVEMBER 1970 -

NOVEMBER 1971 ARE NOW AVAIL-

ABLE. IF YOU BECAME A MEM-

BER OF P.D. BEFORE 3lst AUG-

UST 1970 YOU SHOULD RENEW

YOUR MEMBERSHIP. NEW

CARDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM

THE MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY,

OR THROUGH THE BRANCHES.

Lyttle, Walker and Ferguson are the subjects of an official inquiry into their brutality conducted by a senior and impartial officer (of the R.U.C. of course), or to testify that at the first trial none of these officers even claimed to have suffered any injuries or produced any medical evidence at the second trial.

It seems that the law looks after its own - even the incompetent perjurers, and that the wages of sin are good this year - like £800!

R.LP/N.LL.P

The week after the St. Annes byelection, in which it had its most disasterous showing for twenty years, the NILP took another step towards political extinction by expelling Eamonn McCann from its Executive Committee. Truly the death-wish is upon them. The NILP has fought St. Annes five times since the war. Their average vote before this year was 5,650 and they never dropped below 4,300. In the by-election their candidate got 882 votes and lost his deposit. Nearly 3,500 voters deserted them, and almost exactly that number voted for the SDLP candidate Lavery. The Unionist vote, though up on the February 1969 election when there was also a liberal unionist, was down on all previous elections in St. Annes so much for polarization of the voters. Faced with this debacle the NILP executive, with their unfailing talent for blaming everyone but themselves for their mistakes, have decided that McCann's activities lost them thousands of votes.

The reality of the situation is that the NILP's pusillaninous fencesitting has fool:d no-one. Their

JUSTICE MUST NOT —

ONLY BE DONE BUT

MUST CLEARLY BE

failure to back the Civil Rights campaign and their total inaction on working-class issues have exposed the sham nature of their 'socialism'. Given even the alternative of the SDLP most of their former supporters deserted the them.

Far from losing the NILP support, McCann's membership has unfortunately tended to persuade some genuine socialists to stay in that rotten organisation in the vain hope of changing it from within. Now that the NILP Executive have shown their disregard for internal democracy by (1) refusing to endorse McCann as a candidate last June after a local branch had selected him and (2) expelling him from the Executive after he had been democratically elected, it should become clear that it is impossible to change an organisation democratically when it doesn't have a democratic structure. At the same time the St. Anne's result makes nonsense of the argument the: the NILP has any sort of mass support among the working class.

In fact it gets the votes when there is no other alternative to Unionism around. It is time the few socialists left in the NILP realised that it never has been and never will be a socialist party, and that to ''stay in and fight'' is to waste time and energy badly needed for the building of a real socialist movement. The P.D.

has taken up that task. We would welcome the assistance of ex-members of the NILP. Meanwhile NILP is digging its own grave.

The duty of all socialists is to bury it. M. FARRELL

CONFERENCE

The P.D. Conference is on Sunday November 29th in Belfast at 3.00pm. All members should attend. For details of venue ring: 669686, 615661 or 665644

FREE CITIZEN 27th NOVEMBER 1970

CUTHBERT: ‘SAME AGAIN

It will take "13 or 14 years” for people in Northern Ireland to attain the standard of living that people in.

Britain today enjoy. This was just one of the more startling pieces of information given by the new Professor of Economics at Queens, Norman Cuthbert, in his inaugural lecture. Professor Cuthbert was reviewing developments over the past 20 years and on past trends estimating the state of the economy in 1990. Since 1950, more than one-third of the jobs then existing in manufacturing have disappeared. Despite government policies to attract new industries manufacturing employment has actually FALLEN by 6% in the last 20 years. The natural increase in the population since 1950 was 301,000 of whom more than half, no less than 157,000, have had to emigrate.

Total employment has increased by a paltry 14,000, unemployment has risen by 9,000. Average earnings have remained throughout the period more than one-quarter less than those in Britain. Professor Cuthbert was co-author, 13 years ago, of a voluminous work, The Northern Ireland Economy, this monumental work was sponsored by the Government, and as Cuthbert ‘explained in his lecture the government then made clear to him "that policy recommendations would be quite unwelcome”. The facts that Cuthbert and his ilk unearthed about the past and present are quite enough to convince us that present policies and the present regime are rotten. One might have hoped that Cuthbert would have used his inaugural lecture to make policy recommendations, or failing that, stuck to the analysis of past disaster and present failure. Not so, he chose to devote the second half of his lecture to extending the past record of misery to the future.

In his outline for the future to 1990, he assumed that emigration would re main as at present, he assumed government policies would remain the same, he concluded that the lowest "realistic" level for unemployment in this period would be 5%.

Never at any stage did he suggest that these rates of emigration or unemployment would prove unaccep> table, or that there were alternative economic policies which could mean a far better future for all. Under the veil of academic competence he justified the status quo.

The bankruptcy of his arguments was well revealed in his closing remarks. He had "insulated his mind" against all other types of social “study such as political science or sociology. Thus his arguments depended on the assumption that there would be no more 'trouble'.

Here we find an "insulated mind" which has much in common with the architects of the Matthew Plan.

They said that the basic cause of trouble was economic failure, and they went on to say that we would fail economically if there was trouble. Queen's Economics Department has, of course, been closely associated with Government Economic Policy. Professor Cuthbert's predecessor Professor Parkinson was on the Government Economic Council. As a result of the bogus 'academic' approach they have in common, we have to suffer. They would be of more use to Northern Ireland if they used their closed minds to play chess in the dark.

Meanwhile the least we can do is to use the facts they play around with as convincing evidence of the relevance of a socialist programme for Ireland.

FERMANAGH MARCH

The Civil Rights march in Fermanagh has been loudly denounced by the Unionist party, the moderates and the Coleraine Labour Party - who should have enough to condemn in the NILP. The Unionists hypocrisy is clear from their silence about Paisley's rally in Armagh. The moderates whinge about creating sectarianism when they know that the only people who will oppose this march are already sectarian and support religious discrimination and repressive legislation. The P.D. supports the Civil Rights demands put forward on this march - with the exception of the useless Bill of Rights. Indeed it was the P.D. which first campaigned against the Criminal Justice Act - with no help from NICRA, But we regret that this march is only about purely Civil Rights demands, local government reform and repressive legislation. These issues cannot be separated from the capitalist and imperialist exploitation which is at their root and the problems of Fermanagh - or attywhere else in Ireland - can't be solved except in a Workers' Republic. It is also highly opportunist of NICRA to call a march in Fermanagh when they have been totally inactive there and elsewhere for months now. There have been no civil rights activities for months in places like Derry, where support for the civil rights demands has been allowed to fli or been squandered on the spur "Bill of Rights". - They tal). of returning to the streets. The P.})., been off the streets. The P.D. will not take part officially in the Enniskillen march, b will continue to campaign for ful!

civil rights and for the smushin; capitalist and imperialist oppression in this country. stopped. has never We have never j fares. }

LETTER

Dear Sir, When are the abuses of so-called justice in this country going to stop? A recent remark passed by Mr.

Justice Scarman saying that even a judge can be influenced by the facts of a case, seems to be the focal point in the case I am about to put to you. The victim (he could not be classed as anything else) is John Kelly, aged 22 years. a married man with three small ch ldren and a pregnant wife. He was charged with having 16 rounds of ammunition in July of this year. It took a jury only 10 minutes to convict this man, 1d to take five years off his life.

Ten minutes seems to me scarely long enough for any jury to consider a case intelligently. Was this man given five years because he dared to say that a member of the British Army had planted the bullets? His house had been thoroughly searched by the Army and cleared, yet he and two other men were forced to stand outside and, lo and behold, a soldier appeared with what he said were bullets (even though the defendant was not shown them until much later) saying he found them in the outside toilet in an open yard at the rear of the house. Are we to believe then that the British troops are infallable?

When they don their uniform does it place them above ordinary people and make them incapable of human error? Another aspect of this case is the two other men who were in John Kelly's house. Grant you they were strangers sheltering from the curfew. Yet at.the trial their counsels were able to get them dismissed before they were even called to the witness box. Does this not strike one as strange, considering that John Kelly swore that the soldier giving evidence was not even there when the house was searched?

Why then were these men not called to agree or disagree with this statement? This was a failing on the part of John Kelly's counsel, who in my opinion, helped to put him in prison. To sum up, I believe that the judge in this case was influenced by the fact that John Kelly dared to speak up for himself, to challenge the statement sworn on a bible by a British soldier. Yours, Mrs. M. Duffin, 49, Leeson Street, Belfast 12. bus fare mitchers Education welfare officers in Belfast have reported that the increased bus-fares have meant that many schoolchildren are now staying at home because parents cannot afford he increase. Mothers succeeded in calling a special meeting of the Corporation to reconsider children's f PD's request for a meeting to , reconsider all fares needs only one more councillor's signature.

SOCIALIST

FREE CITIZEN 27th November 1970

LIAM MELLOWS

As a boy Liam Mellows offered his services to the publisher of Irish Freedom", Tom Clarke, who had served many years in English jails and who later signed the Easter Week proclamation with James Connolly and five other leaders. Liam was the first organiser of Na Fianna Eireann, and Countess Markievicz could always rely on him. Then when Oglaigh na hEireann was founded he became organiser for Eoin McNeill. In 1915 Liam was ordered out of the country by the police and he ignored the order which led to his arrest for four mounths in Mountjoy Jail.

On his release he took over the Galway Volounteers and was again arrested. and taken to England from where he escaped back to Dublin.

He went straight to St. Endas, Rathfarnham to see P.H. Pearse and a week before the rising went to Galway by motor bike where he ordered all Volunteers to be ready for Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday evening he set about planning and the volunteers, many of whom were armed only with pikes, answered his call. On Easter Monday Liam found that he had 36 riflemen and 30 men armed with martini enfield rifles.

This was the main firepower his force had. Tuesday saw his force attack Gort and Oranmore police barracks. That evening New Inn police barracks was captured by Volunteers along with all the rifles and ammunition; Liam was delighted with this, and on Wednesday the British Navy sent a destroyer to shell the countryside over which Liam was now incommand. Ulster Protestant Volunteers poured into Galway to assist the police and military. The police at Athenry took some Ulster Protestant Volunteers with them to Moynode where a few Volunteers fired at them and chased them back to Athenry. The U.P.V. did not show their faces again. Thursday saw Liam's men attack Kinvars police barracks. A party of British troops were attacked at Moynode and they retreated. Clarenbridge police barracks was also attacked.

Learning that Dublin had surrendered, Liam disbanded his men and with two comrades took to the hills.

AMERICA

While a religious man he was still a great socialist. (James Connolly knew this and paid tribute to him : from the G. P.O. which was then ; on fire). Working as a stoker he made his way to America where the Irish Americans would not help him. He contracted fever and his only friend took him into his house.

The British put the American police on his track and while walking along the street one night a carload of F.B.I. men arrested him and took him to the Tombs Prison, New.

York. They released him after a few days. At last Patrick McCartan from Carrickmore Co.

Tyrone came to the U.S.A. and contacted Liam who was bitter against the Yanks for their treatment of the coloured and the poor.

One coloured man had the .K.K.K.

sign of the anti-black gangsters burned on his back while Liam was there. Incidents such as this made Liam vow if ever he got his chance the poor and the coloured would get their own back on the Yankee capitalists and the British Imperialists. At last after giving a series of lectures on the fight then being carried on in Ireland against the Imperialists he came home and was immediately appointed on the Army Council of Oglaigh Na hEireann.

TREATY

In 1921 when the Treaty was signed, Liam opposed it and started to organise relief for the Ulster Republicans, especially in Belfast where armed orange gangs, B. Specials and police were murdering nationalists by the hundred.

In June 1922 he was captured by the Treaty Government after a gunbattle lasting three days. He was taken to Mountjoy military prison where he jotted down his plans for a socialist Ireland which would be on the lines of Connolly's Workers' Republic. Only three months before the Free State Army murdered him he urged that his comrades outside have the socialist programme embodied in the Declaration of Independence translated into something definite. He wrote: 'Under.the Republic all industry will be controlled by the State for the workers' benefit".

Writing of the transport and banking system, he wrote, "All transport, canals and railways will be operated by the Republican state for the benefit of the workers. All banks will be operated by the state’ for the benefit of industry and agriculture - not for the purpose of profitmaking by loans and mortages etc. That the land of the aristocracy who support the British connection will be seized and divided amongst the people who can and will work it for the nation's benefit,” At the end of August 1922 writing on the general situation he noted that the question of demesnes and ranches had been discussed during the period of the First Dail, 1919 - 1920. Some action had been taken, but not enough to be effective ona wide scale. This was pointed out by Tom Johnson. O'Brien and Cathal O'Shannon when they visited Liam's G.H.Q. in May 1922.

Of food he wrote that it would be a serious problem in time to come.

The loss of the railways would be felt by the towns. Instead of people having to rely on Governments responsible for wretched economic situations they should be taught to rely on themselves and their own resources. In a letter to Austin Stack (who later became President of Sinn Fein) dated September 11th 1922 Liam stated that those outside should use publicity to draw attention to the unemployment problem which resulted in starvation, as well as the get-tough tactics of employers to their underpaid workers who dared to go on strike. He also points out that a Republican Workers Government must see to it that it takes an interest in the complaint of each worker as sometimes even the Trade Unions can drown a man's voice, especially if he happens to be the only one of, say, fifty who are victimised. The situation created by all these must be utilised for the Republic.

position must be defined. Empire means capitalism and industr ism, Republic means workers and labour. This was the man the Staters told around 2a.m. on December 8th 1922 that he would face a firing squad of Stater soldiers at 8a.m.

He did not fail or falter. When walking through the snow in Mountprison yard he shouted "the Republic still lives, our deaths make that certain". A few minutes later the Stater firing squad murdered him. He was a major loss to Irish and World freedom. Had he been allowed to live he would have been delighted with the boys and girls of the Peoples Democracy and ail the work they did since 1968 to bring his hopes and wishes to reality. It is an organisation after his own heart.

ST ET

she This article was received from a FREE CITIZEN reader in Strabane.

FREE CITIZEN always welcomes articles from readers the same old story. Police in anti-riot gear and wielding truncheons yesterday swept homeless Sicilian peasant demonstrators out of a ] makeshift encampment only 15 yards from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome. | ¥ The peasants had called for ithe reconstruction of their homes, destroyed by an earthquake in the Valle Del Belice region in January, 1968. ook Pi I tas’ Dubscr ption 30/- per

REVOLUTIONARY