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AGAINST THE TRUCE The ruling classes in Ireland and Britain hesitated in the face of the Provo ceasefire moves. But a right-wing offensive within these ruling classes has directed their response onto a firmer ‘no concessions’ line than might at first have been expected. Elements in the North, in the South and wm Britain have found common cause against a peace that would give any Political advantage to the Provos.

The right wing was at first on the defensive. The editor of the Daily Telegraph William Deedes, spéaking on British T.V. appeared painfully conscious that his insistence that there should be no talks with the IRA would find little response in a British public that lacks confidence in its government's role in Ireland.

The Unionists, for the most part, played it cautiously, aware that the rules of the ‘Peace’ game had been altered; only the apoplectic Paisley was caught in the offside trap. And in Dublin Conor Cruise O’Brien was held in check by his team-mates, who waited in anxious silence as they nursed their wounded pride. But on January 5th the Sunday World revealed the existence of a behind-the-scenes campaign to break the truce politically. Although it did not name names, the report gave the marin details of the right-wing grouping that was already playing a leading role in influencing the actions of the Dublin and Westminster governments.

The line-up included ‘‘two serving generals” in the British Army and "’a former senior army officer who signed himself out of a hospital to take part in the campaign. Another is a prominent English Catholic M.P.”

The retired officer is Brigadier Thompson, who was recently injured when his helicopter was shot down by Left-wing guerrillas in the -Yemen (see The Collaborators). The Sunday World mentions that “the cabal have held at least one of its meetings in the board room of 2 Fleet Street newspaper’. Brigadier Thompson is a defence correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. The English Catholic M.P. is right-wing Tory, Biggs-Davidson; and one of the ‘two serving generals” is General Sir Peter Hunt. Significance of Francis Green’s assassination An important piece in the jigsaw of the right-wing 32-County Workers’ Republic.

Double standards an effective link with the Provos.

known, TS Republic, they exist within a movement whose leadership is incapable of developing a revolutionary programme for winning the historic aims of Republicanism. Lacking a revolutionary programme, the Provo leadership can only switch between the options of a reformist political policy which proposes to modify but not abolish capitalism, and an elitist military struggle which is increasingly alienated from the political objective of a An important role in breaking the ceasefire was played by 6 top man at the Northern Ireland office, James Allan, whose attitude to the Protestant para-military groups is similar to that of the Army. As a UDA leader said: “He is on the phone to us so often, he is like a brother’, Such a relationship contrasts sharply, of course, Army. with the willingness of the British government to see the ceasefire collapse for lack of The eagerness of the Dublin government to see the truce break down was embarrassing even to some of their own supporters. Naive Church Prospective Collaboracor of the Month Who is the latest applicant for membership of the SDLP?

Who stopped the Republican Labour Party going headlong with Gerry Fitt into the SDLP?

Who was it, who after the McGurk’s Bar bombing correctly fingered the British S.A.S. for their role in the bombing?

The answer, regrettably, to all three questions is the same, Paddy ‘| wouldn't corss the road with Gerry Fitt’ Kennedy, former Republican Labour Party MP at Stomont from Belfast Central.

Mr. Kennedy, who once described Gerry Fitt as somebody who “‘would sei! his mother for 6d and then kneel down and thank God that he had a mother to sell’, has now signed an application form to join the SDLP.

The scene of this conversion was not the road to Damascus but the main dining room of the Burlington Hotel just before Xmas.

A crumpled copy of Paddy's application was last seen in the left-hand pocket of Paddy Devlin. Where Gerry Fitt’s hand was at the time is not The price of Mr. Kennedy’s conversion is believed to be the promise of an SDLP nomination for a Convention seat in an area adjacent to his former constituency.

Arch-collaborator Fitt is attempting to block the conversion, but providing the two Paddys can reach an amicable arrangement with Dessie Gillespie, Fitt’s opposition will go the same way as his expectations of the Governor Generalship of Mauritius.

Or so | am told.

THE OMAN CONNECTION Recent reports in the British Daily Telegraph of the imminent victory of British forces over Arab forces makes strange reading when one considers that Brigadier Thomson, the Telegraph's defence correspondent has only just been released from the hospital to which he was admitted when his facility helicopter was shot down by Left-wing guerrillas within 30 miles of the Oman capital.

Watch out for more brilliant dispatches from the gallant Brigadier, announcing the imminent victory of the British Army in the Oman. These hospital bed dispatches are not unconnected with the dramatic decline in morale inside the British Cynics in London are comparing the Brigadier’s dispatches with the London Times report of the ‘Fall’ of Sebastopol.

THE GERMAN CONNECTION -

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