year olds get army vengeance in Ballymurphy
Unfree Citizen1974British troops and the occupationBritish troops and the occupation
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in Ballymurphy a duck patrol of the for even though those who were well the ground.
A march to the City Hall was The British Army, or “the Brits’’ as kids in Belfast prefer to call them, sometimes surpass even themselves, when it comes to exhibitions of sadism. On Monday week last Royal Green Jackets regiment, based in the Henry Taggart Hall, came across a group of ten-year old children playing. They hid in a backyard for some time watching them and apparently decided that it wasn’t right for kids to be happy. The Brit in charge came up to the group and ordered them all up against the wall. The kids just stared back, acquainted with seeing their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters arrested or beaten up by the army, couldn't understand why they were being singled out. The kids reaction was obviously not fast enough for the Brit for he smacked ten year old Tony Gray in the ribs with his rifle butt knocking him to area, IN BELFAST That done, he cracked a joke to his mates and ‘they all set off at a trot — back to base. No doubt to report another successful bit of intimidation of the ‘paddies’.
Tony Gray had to have hospital treatment for his injury and certainly he and his friends have a clearer idea of the racist hatred existing in the British Army. Considering the attack was on a ten year old child makes us wonder about the extent of injuries to the men in Long Kesh and Crumlin Road Jail over the past month.
Finally the incident is an answer to all those who call for an end to the war against the army on the grounds that “soldiers are only lads doing a day’s work — it is those at the top who are the criminals’. Imperialism has been successful precisely because it has bribed so many to defend it. Its indoctrination is all the more frighteningly successful when a 10 year old child can be attacked by a soldier for simply being a child in a catholic