New Anti-people Weapons

Two of the British Army's most recent anti-people weapons were used in the Sixcounties in the past few weeks. As the brutal murder of Hugh Coney while escaping from Long Kesh was producing strong reaction in the North, the Brits were once again trying out the ‘squawk box’ and ‘plastic’ bullets to break up demonstrations.

Arally at Casement Park on the day of the killing was used as the guinea-pig for the ‘squawk box’. The existence of this device has previously been denied by British Army H.Q. at Lisburn. A result of its use has been that some people at the demonstration suffered from nausea and dizziness. This device has a very varied effect. It does not affect ali people, and its effect depends a lot on the vehicle it is used from. Basically the ‘squawk box’ gives out two slightly different sounds which can hardly be heard. These combine to create two other sounds even more difficult te hear.

The device depends on atiecting several people, or even one person, in a crowd. Its effect lies in the panic which follows as people see the affected person fainting or being sick. The beam of the machine can be narrowed to focus on a single individual.

A further sophistication is the ‘photic driver’ a light machine which uses a flickering infra-red light and a very highpitched sound. It produces epileptic fits, even in people without a history of epilepsy. After having one such fit a person is in future likely to have others. This device has not yet been fully tested so it would see that the anti-Unionists will be the guinea-pigs.

The plastic bullets fired at crowds in Belfast and Armagh since October 15th showed that the British Army are making no further pretence about not firing straight at human targets — they obviously intend te maim or to kill. The material in these bullets is a very hard plastic — too rigid to plastic ones do not. America.

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mean, why is so much worse than what we have at the moment?

Capitalist states repressive All capitalist states are repressive and their police army and courts serve the interests of the ruling class. Even in Britain traditionally the most stable and secure capitalist country, the police have always persecuted blacks, itinerants, squatters and leftist groups. Today with the British economy in crisis the police are attacking strikers and the Courts are jailing them on trumped-up charges, while there are constant efforts to get the people used to seeing the Army on the streets “‘in aid of the civil power”.

The more seriously a capitalist or imperialist state is threatened, the more repressive it becomes and the more openly the Army, Police and Courts intervene on the side of the ruling class. But there are still restraints on them. The bosses try to maintain the fiction that the State is neutral in the conflict and they don’t completely abolish the democratic rights wrung out of them over the years by the workers. Usually the press still has some freedom and there is freedom to organise for some opposition parties. These are important rights because they make it possible to organise resistance.

Fascism a last resort?

But as a last resort the ruling class will turn to Fascism to preserve itself. What that means can be seen by looking at what happened in Germany In the midst of the Great Depression with 6 million workers unemployed with the Communist vote steadily rising in the elections and with none of the established parties able to get a majority in Parliament, the desperate German ruling class turned to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to save them from revolution. The ‘Unfree Citizen’ has repeatedly warned of the serious danger of an Orange Fascist'take-over in the 6 Counties. But we are often asked: What does Fascism Hitler and Nazism Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30th 1933. Within a month his henchman Goering had set up a 50,000 strong Auxiliary Police in Prussia to suppress any resistance in the most strongly Social Democratic of the German states. Forty thousand of the Auxiliary Police came from the S.A. the Nazi Party’s para-military private army and the other 10,000 from the paramilitary wing of the right-wing Nationalist Party. The German government was arming the Nazi thugs and giving them licence to wipe: out the German Left. ;

On February 28th the Reichstag, the German Parliament, was burnt down — almost certainly by the Nazis themselves — and the resulting hysteria used to pass an Emergency Decree which suspended freedom of speech, freedom of the press etc. and introduced internment without trial. Within a few days over 4,000 Communists, Socialists and Radicals were rounded up, some killed and the rest jailed. On March 23rd the Parliament passed an Enabling Act empowering Hitler to rule by decree for 4 years. He got the necessary 2/3rd majority by disqualifying the 81 Communist Deputies and using armed S.A.-men to prevent many of the Social Democrat Deputies from getting into the Parliament building.

Nazis abolish all democratic rights After that it was straightforward. Goering set up the Gestapo, a secret political police, who were above all laws. Dozens of concentration camps were set up and all political opponents thrown into them. Trade unions were suppressed and strikes state force and eventually took humanity. In the words of a come to power’.

abolished all democratic rights, trade unions and jailed tens of thousands of opponents. But it didn’t stop there. In June 1934 Hitler decided to eliminate semblance of legality the S.S. murdered hundreds of Nazis, in their way as well, including General Von Schlemher.

Opponents and Jews butchered in private, amounted to a death labour camp.

to own property, they were banned by June 1933 and all parties except the Nazi party outlawed in July. The S.S., the ruthless elite corps of the S.A., was made an official control of the whole German police. Like the S.A., the S.S. was made up of sadists, thugs, petty criminals, brutalised ex-soldiers, the dregs of biographer of Hitler “the gutter had Within 6 months the Nazis had closed down all opposition papers, smashed all other parties and the troublesome elements in his own party and in one night without a including some of Hitler’s closest associates in the early days. They took the opportunity to kill a lot of other people who were getting Hitler’s predecessor as Chancellor, After that Hitler or the S.S. and the Gestapo were the law in Germany. S.A.-men could beat a man to death in the streets or gun him down and the regular police would tym their backs or join in. People disappeared at night and were never seen again or their bodies were found in a river. No-one dared ask questions. The slightest criticism of the regime, even warrant. Not enough enthusiasm at party rallies could lead to a forced And a whole series of laws were issued against the Jews. Jews were barred from public employment and the professions, they were forbidden forbidden to marry non-Jews, they were forced to wear a yellow star : ——— which was an invitation to be beaten up in the streets, they were forced to live in ghettos. Eventually 6% million of them were herded off to die in the extermination camps.

Nazi fascist party became the state — it took a world war to crush it In Nazi Germany there were no limits, no restraints on the repressive measures of the state’s forces to defend the ruling class. — Hitler ruled solidly in the interests-of the bosses. — The state no longer even pretended to be neutral. It was totally involved on the side of the ruling class and against the working class. Fascism was really a civil war turned into a system of government. And it lasted long after the threat from the Left had been totally crushed. In fact it took a world war to get rid of Hitler for when repression reaches the level of terror it reached in Nazi Germany it succeeds in suppressing almost all resistance. Fascism meant that the State openly became the instrument of the Nazi Party and its wealthy backers, in fact the party became the state, and the Nazi thugs and storm-troopers became the Police, the Army and the Courts.

6 Cos. — high level of collaboration between British imperialists and Fascist Loyalist groups In the North where British Imperialist’s control is seriously threatened, we have virtual military rule and a high level of collaboration between the Police and British Army and the Fascist Loyalist groups. British troops can gun down civilians * and they are always cleared in Court. Loyalist murder-gangs assassinate Catholics at will and are rarely caught. Hundreds of Republicans are jailed without trial with only a handful of Loyalists to take the bad look off it.

But these are restraints. The press has still some freedom. Papers like

the ‘Irish News’ and less frequently, the 26 Co. papers, can still report atrocities by the RUC and British Army. Political organisations like the Peoples Democracy, though harrassed, can still operate, publish papers, organise meetings. The Courts cannot impose the death penalty and when the British Army murder civilians they still have to tell lies and make excuses. The State still tries to keep up a pretence of neutrality. Loyalists are still charged in the Courts and some are convicted and jailed. The U.D.A. and U.V.F. are still separate, though only just, from the R.U.C. and U.D.R. We are still a few steps away from outright Fascism.

Britain hands over to Loyalists But, as the British try to extricate themselves from direct involvement in the North; while retaining economic control. they are preparing to hand over to a Loyalist regime backed by the para-military thugs of the U.D.A., U.V.F. etc., who are itching to stage a coup anyway. In the heat of the ensuing struggle all restraints would go: Political opposition would be banned and even the moderate bourgeois press would be muzzled or bombed out of existence. The Loyalist gangs would become the Police and Army, armed by the State, the murder of Catholics an official policy. Loyalist prisoners would be released, no more Loyalists would be charged by a police force totally under Loyalist control. Discrimination would become the law and the concentration camps would overflow. Repression would be worse than ever before for Catholic minority We have seen it all before. When the 6-county State was established in 1921 the original RUC and A, B and C Specials were recruited directly from the U.V.F. and under cover of the Curfew carried out a systematic policy of murdering Catholic civilians as reprisals. The Special Powers Act placed them above the law and all Republican organisations and papers were banned and ruthlessly suppressed.

Discrimination and gerrymandering were accepted Government policy. For years N. Ireland was a semi-facist state.

This time it would be worse for just as the threat to the existence of the State is more serious so the response will be more brutal and violent. In 1921 Craig was able to keep the U.V.F. in their place, the gutter was not allowed to come to full power. This time they need the give them more of a say.

imaginary enemies the Nazis. butchers more, they will have to Fascism attacks both real and It is characteristic of Fascism that it attacks not only its real enemies but also its imaginary ones. Hitler outlawed and jailed not only Communists and Marxists but the timid and harmless Social Democrats and even the Catholic Centre Party who collaborated with Many S.D.L.P. supporters and uninvolved Catholics can see the Loyalist take-over coming but are consoling themselves that it is only Republicans and Marxists, like P.D., who will be hit. They are only fooling themselves. A U.D.A. regime would smash the §.D.L.P. and even the Alliance Party; all Catholics and liberal Protestants would become targets. Only the Orange bigot would be safe.

We spell this. out to alert all those people not actively involved in the present struggle and who pin their hopes on some sort of compromise after the Convention elections and those in the South who may be lulled into apathy by the fawing interviews with Loyalist thugs on R.T.E. which represent Craig, Paisley and the U.D:A. and U.V.F. as moderate reasonable men.

NO ONE CAN STAND ASIDE The North faces a Fascist take-over which would subject the minority to a worse slavery than they have experienced for the last 50 years. Once Fascism is in power it consolidates itself and is extremely difficult to overthrow. It must never get into power. ALL antiunionists, ALL anti-imperialists must unite to resist the coming Loyalist take-over. No-one can stand aside from this struggle. History will condemn them if they do.

a a LC A LOYALIST TERMS