FEATURES

Shoot-to-kill
Northern
lreland’s

‘final court
of justice’

By NIALL FARRELL

“Taxpayers’ money would be better spent on an in-
cinerator and burning the lot of them (the Catholics of
Northern Iréland). The priests should be thrown in and
burnt as well.’’ These words were spoken at the end of
May by George Seawright, an elected member of the
Democratic Unionist Party. The Unionists fervently
support Northern Ireland’s ‘union’ with Britain.

There is no chance that the British government, which
directly controls Northern Ireland, will take up Mr.
Seawright’s proposal. However, less than a week after
his statements were made public, a leading member of
the judiciary gave his blessing to the shooting of three
unarmed Catholic civilians by the police. Acquitting the
three policemen of murdering the men, all members of
the illegal Irish Republican Army, the judge, com-
mended the police *‘for their courage and determination
in bringing the three deceased men to justice, in this case
to the final courts of justice.”’

Neither of the judge’s of Mr. Seawright’s statements
caused a ripple of surprise amongst the Catholic com-
munity; they only confirmed what is already known, the
law is biased and unionist politicians are steeped in
bigotry.

The ghettos of the Catholic minority in N. Ireland are
living proof of both. They not only suffer the social evils
of poverty and mass unemployment caused by years of
discrimination by the former unionist regime, but re-
pression is also part and parcel of everyday life.

You can always tell when you've entered a Catholic
working class district, there’s more army and police
vehicles cruising around the streets, more soldiers, with
rifles at the ready, darting from one corner to another and
there’s an incessant buzz in the air, day and night,-the
sound of hovering helicopters. After dark the search-
lights of the helicopters sweep the streets, what for, no
one quite knows or cares.

It’s all part of the British army’s surveillance tech-
niques, which are the most up to date in the world.
Information on half the population — 750,000 people —
is On computer. Information on any particular individual
can range from a detailed description of the person to the
color of the settee in the main living room of his or her
home. And the frequent police and army patrols can
have this information relayed to them in seconds by the
push of a button.

All this intelligence-gathering equipment is in constant
use. The troops on the streets continually stop, search,
question and, if they desire, arrest people. It is the youth
that face the brunt of this, particularly the young unem-
ployed of which there are plenty.

Such is the very visible side of everyday life in the
Catholic ghettos of Northern Ireland. However, a much
more in-depth picture has and is being recorded by a
small group of cencerned citizens, who in their spare
time document the statements of those who have fallen
victim to the various forms of repression. Called the
Association of Legal Justice, the organization was
founded back in 1970. If its history is ever written it will
read like a chronology of British injustice — from

| internment, the non-jury courts and the widespread use
| of torture in the 1970s and the deadly use of plastic

bullets, the “‘shoot to kill’? policy of the police and the
_ use of informers to convict ‘‘suspects’’.
| Over the past 14 years working for the ALJ, Frances
| Murray and Clara Reilly, one a teacher, the other a
| housewife, have witnessed how the supposedly routine
| personnel checks carried out by the army and police are
| used to virtually torture the young people. From their

files they produced numerous examples. One young
man, who comes from perhaps the poorest district of
Catholic West Belfast, the sprawling Divis Flats com-
plex, kept a diary of the harassment meted out to him
over a three-month period. He was stopped no less than
110 times.

In a statement to the ALJ another unemployed man
complained: ‘‘I can’t pass an army foot patrol but they
stop and ask me my name, which they obviously know.
My family come in for severe harassment, I had a brother
killed by the army. My mother’s house has been wreck-
ed on many occasions ... things have got so bad the
family is considering moving ... I can’t walk about with
anyone, or can’t stand at the door but they are at me.”’
It’s a familiar story, which ALJ members hear from
different young people nearly everyday.

Over the years the association has transformed itself
into a very unique emergency service for families look-
ing for help to find a son or a daughter who has been
arrested. Hence a couple of its members are on 24-hour
call. If a person is mistreated while in custody the
association will assist them in making a complaint to the
police. Not that anything will come of it. But for the
victims of police brutality it is useful. It shows the police
that the persons concerned are refusing to be intimi-
dated. Where death threats have been made, which is
very often, it is always worthwhile to make it public, it
might just keep the killer from the door. Unfortunately, it

doesn’t always help.

Many who suffer harassment try to emigrate. Gervais
McKerr was one such person. He had even arranged a
job in Canada and had hoped to start a new life with his
wife and family. However, British police informed
Canadian authorities he was a ‘“‘security risk’’, so

a

AA
Be

McKerr was refused an entry visa. Instead he remained
and became another victim of the *‘shoot to kill’’ policy
— the ‘‘final court of justice’ in N. Ireland.

Others get away, but become homesick and return.
Twenty-two year old Thomas Reilly did just that. He had
been on the ALJ’s books since he was 17 years old; at
that time the police were trying to blackmail him. On a
blistering summer day last August, with his shirt in hand,
he tried to avoid a confrontation with the army. He
Started to run away, a bullet in the back stopped him,
dead — his killer, an 18-year old British soldier.

The British government claims it is fighting terrorism,
while in actual fact its policies are the recruiting sergeant
for groups like the IRA. There is no contradiction in this
for imperialism. They may lose a few British squaddies,
but their violence and the counter-violence it provokes
ensures that sectarian divisions rife among the working
class continue to exist.

The IRA will continue to pursue its counter-
productive military campaign, every policeman they
shoot, who will almost definitely be a Protestant,
strengthens the religious division. Britain is quite simply
playing the old game of divide and rule. Bigots like
George Seawright are pandered to, allowing the right-
wing Protestant terror gangs to interpret this as an open
season on Catholics. And so the vicious circle of vio-
lence continues.

But have no doubt, the British government will not be
building an incinerator to burn Catholics. Why should
they? They have already created the statelet of Northern
Ireland which is a living hell.

Niall Farrell is a journalist and a member of the Communist
Party of Ireland.

39th session of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

Advancing socialist cooperation

HAVANA — ‘‘Mobilizing untapped reserves, using
the advantages of mutual cooperation and socialist
economic integration, member countries of the Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) have made
further social and economic progress by raising the ef-
ficiency of social production,”’ reports the final commu-
niqué of the 39th session of CMEA which met here Oct.
29-31.

Founded in 1949, CMEA is the inter-governmental
economic organization of 10 socialist states: Bulgaria,
Hungary, Vietnam, GDR, Cuba, Mongolia, Poland,
Romania, USSR and Czechoslovakia. The Havan ses-
sion also noted the successful development of coopera-
tion between CMEA member states and Yugoslavia and
continued multilateral cooperation with Finland, Iraq
and Mexico. In addition, an agreement on cooperation
with Nicaragua was put into effect in February , 1984.

“In 1983 the national income produced by CMEA
member states increased by 3.8 per cent compared with
1982, and industrial production grew by 4.2 per cent’’,
the communiqué notes. ‘‘Overall foreign trade turnover
topped 285-billion roubles in 1983, up eight per cent.
Mutual trade increased by 11 per cent.’’.

The Havana session approved long-term measures for

cooperation in the fields of energy, fuel and raw mate-
rials for the period up to 1990.

The communiqué noted the serious international
situation resulting from U.S. imperialism’s drive to
achieve military superiority, militarize space, persue a
policy of strength, thwart national liberation movements
and carve “‘spheres of influence’’.

It noted that imperialist economic aggression grows
apace with the use of trade, credit and technological
blockage; outright pressure, embargoes and sanctions.
‘‘As a result’, it reports, ‘‘an overwhelming majority of
developing states have found themselves in an increas-
ingly difficult economic position with an external debt
totalling more than $800-billion in 1983.”

CMEA stressed that developing and expanding its
relations with developing states will continue to make an
effective contribution to the restructuring of inter-
national economic relations on a just and democratic
basis.

It also reaffirmed its readiness to continue developing
business cooperation with capitalist states on the basis of
mutual benefit, equality and non-intervention in each
others’ internal affairs. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 5, 1984 e 9