Nate ee eee ei lest ee ial 1.S.C. JOINS EASTER MARCH IN BELFAST

case of indiscriminate shooting by the Ulster Special Constabulary they had directly contravened official police orders that the B’s to ou fire arms on riot control When you add up all these apparently isolated cases of flouting orders and breaches of discipline by the police, their generality raand the Protestant Robs | is similarly dealt , : po with. It is boldly asserted at the beginning of the report that ‘‘. . . the general case of a partisan force cooperating with Protestant mobs to attack Catholic people is devoid of substance, and we reject it utterly”’. But as one reads the report of each town and incident once again, in nearly every case of major disturbance the report reveals the Protestant gangs behind the RUC/LSC in the streets.

This is not the case only in Derry and Belfast where it was already well established that the Protestant mobs combined with the police in armed assaults as well as baton charges, petrol bombings, burnings etc. The picture is similar in the small towns. The example of Dungannon will suffice. In dealing with the relationship bet ween the police and the Protestant mob there it quotes the evidence of County Inspector Landale faced with a ‘‘Protestant crowd in ugly mood”: “With great luck I got them turned and got them to follow me into the Square. I shouted ‘Back to the Square quick’ and I ran towards them and to my amazement they turned and they followed me” ‘The Protestant mob had good reason to think that the Inspector would not lead them astray, because earlier, as the report is forced to show, the USC had opened fire on an unarmed crowd of Catholics injuring three of them. Landale’s testimony demonstrates very well the relationship that existed between the police and Protestant mobs. Scarman, instead of referring to this evidence points to examples of police refusing to unite with the Protestant mobs and even restraining them from attacking Catholics.

The point however is not that the police alfundamental differences in aspiration of the religiously divided people raised and never as a contextual basis for understanding events. Absolutely no light is shed on the social grievances that lie behind the Catholic resistance to the armed bodies of the Orange statelet. However, none of these things make the reportpolitically significant, and it has rightly been : eno : tome initiative. However, one lesson that emerges from the report is worth repeating, mainly because it is a lesson for some of the left, who during those days in the middle of August 1969 abandoned fundamental anti-imperialist positions and joined in the chorus of approval for the intervention of the imperialist army. It is clear from the report that troops were deliberately kept out of the streets until after the USC had been let off the leash for a time. The troops were thus to appear as the saviours of the Catholics from a massive pogrom. This was the deliberate policy of the Wilson goverment, to make the troops more credible as a ‘peace keeping’ force. Thus, far from being responsible for stopping the threatening build up of armed attacks on the Catholics it was the British government itself and Wilson in particular that must largely bear the responsibility for unleashing these forces.

—Ben Joseph long delayed initiatives. IRA. Every year at Easter Republicans North and South march in commemmoration of the Luster Uprising of 1916, esc paying stim 1916. This year’s Easter march took place at a critical pomt in Ireland’s long history of struggle. The mass resistance over the past two years of the nationalist population of the six counties, underpinned and carried forward by the military resistance of both wings of the Irish Republican Army, had made it impossible for British Imperialism to impose any solution. In other words, they have failed in their tactic of militarily defeating the IRA as a first step towards ending the resistance and bringing in a new period of stability. A new approach was needed, and this was provided by the By suspending Stormont (though only temporarily) and announcing a “phasing out” of internment the British Government hoped to draw away a significant number of the nationalist population from their support for the military tactics of the IRA. Isolation of the IRA from its base in the nationalist population would be a significant victory for imperialism. The Easter marches provided the first opportunity after the Heath initiatives for the minority to demonstrate openly their the IRA. response to I mperialism’s concessions—peace on Britain’s terms or support for the IRA and the continuation of the struggle. In Belfast alone over 12,000 marched in solidarity behind the ranks of the Official and Provisional This year’s Easter march also saw a 40-man contingent from Britain of the Irish Solidarity Campaign marching in solidarity behind the in close proximity to each other, thus making it difficult for the ISC to take part in both marches.- The Irish Solidarity Campaign gives its unconditional support to both sections of the IRA in its struggle against the armed forces of British Imperialism.

The trip to Belfast was organized by the Oxford branch of the Irish Solidarity Campaign so that a contingent of people from Britain who support the Irish people in their struggle for national self determination could demonstrate their solidarity in a very real manner. The Irish Solidarity Campaign realizes that the few concessions won from the Tory government in no way satisfy the just demands of the Irish people. The struggle will continue. In Britain the ISC will continue to give support to the struggle of the Irish people and in a situation where that struggle finds its sharpest expression in the armed conflict between the IRA and the British Army the ISC will continue to build in this country a strong movement of British and Irish workers and students for the defeat of the British Army and in solidarity with —Gus Fagan Oxford 1.S.C.