Date: Sun, 03 Aug 1997 09:11:35 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Ireland: What is Blair's plan?


Last week I obtained from a public outlet a copy of An Phoblacht/Republican
News of 24th July, with the official statements from the IRA leadership
announcing a complete cessation and the different press statements from
Gerry Adams either on his own or with others.

This edition is 20 pages. The paper has been coming out weekly for years
and is well produced journalistically. It is of course not widely available
in England unless you go to the right pubs. I have not read it for over a
year but Jim is right that it should be read by leftists in England, as
well as by bourgeois liberals.

The front page proclaims "Courage of IRA saluted. Seize new chance" with a
picture of a young nationalist girl of perhaps 7 beating a dustbin lid
against the ground outside a barracks and smiling broadly. The back page,
(relevantly for the debate earlier this week), features a report on
sectarianism in East Antrim. It gives detailed accounts of how nationalists
have been intimidated into leaving their homes in mixed areas, such as
being beaten with baseball bats with nails in them. These accounts sound
factual to me. The opening paragraph makes it clear that this feature is
timed to coincide with and be relevant to the politics of the ceasefire:

"As the IRA cessation came into force at noon on Sunday 20th July An
Phoblacht talked with Catholics from the East Antrim town of Larne about
their experiences over the past number of years at the hands of loyalist
death squads. The test of a new peace process will be how such communities
fare in the future."

The political line of this particular issue is seen in headlines as well as
features.
"IRA creates new opportunity for peace". "Unity is Sinn Fein aim". This
second article really needs reprinting for an analysis of the principles
and subtleties of Sinn Fein's negotiating stance, but one phrase may or may
not reassure Gary: "People power forced the Orange Order to act with some
sense and to avert the crisis. That lesson of street politics and of people
power is very important in the period ahead for nationalists. It must form
a central part of the new peace process."

International news has a feature on Che Guevara's capture and on Colombia,
and the expose of the British role in the murder of the father of Burmese
Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu  Kyi. Southern Irish news includes some
electoral successes and opposition to environmental pollution. A feature on
the European Union warns that the benefits to Ireland of EU capital will be
lost with the enlargement of the Union, but is ambiguous about whether it
supports the EU or not.

I was a bit surprised that the paper quoted a Troops Out ("the group which
campaigns in England, Scotland and Wales for British withdrawal from
Ireland") statement welcoming the cessation, in four paragraphs. There is
no other statement of support from any anti-imperialist body in England.

The editorial is entitled "A Challenge for everyone" with a subtitle "RUC
and RIR must be disbanded". I will now quote the signed article opposite by
Mary Nelis. While unsigned it is clearly there to demonstrate the
background range of informed nationalist opinion about strategic options.
Also while recognising that Blair's policy is different and preferable to
that of Major, it criticises the fundamental imperialist and opportunist
intentions. It also illuminates IMO indirectly the strategic question: if
fundamental change comes about, is this because of the final triumph of the
historic Irish national liberation struggle, or because
capitalism/imperialism has moved on to the stage of wanting civil rights
respected under various state structures to serve a largely integrated
transnational market? Both readings seem to me to be possible.

Although fairly long, and although the most interesting para is at the end
IMO, there are other very interesting observations and I think it is better
to quote it in full as a sample of informed but individual Republican
thinking and Republican criticism of the Blair government.

Chris Burford

London.

_____________________________________________

What is Blair's plan?
by Mary Nelis.

The claim over the years that Britain has no selfish, strategic or economic
interst in remaining in Ireland, was finally put to rest by Tony Blair, who
as newly-elected prime minister, nailed his political colours firmly to the
unionist mast.

Given the events of the past few weeks, and the ever widening gap between
unionism and nationalism, one could argue that such a selfish pronouncement
from a party with a clear parliamentary majority, was once again consigning
future generations of nationalist children to a life of conflict and
continuing violence. 

For as Blair stated in his Belfast speech, "not even the youngest child
present here today, will see a united Ireland". 

That profound remark, viewed in the context of the events of the Garvaghy
Road, when Blair's storm troopers in the RUC and British Army, beat
nationalist protestors off the streets, clearly illustrates that British
imperialism transcends political ideologies.

The Labour government has no intention, despite all the hype about talks
and peace trains and ceasefires, of conceding democracy. Indeed the
question of Britain's imperialist plans to re-integrate the whole of
Ireland, back into the United Kingdom, must be seriously re-examined. It is
clear that Blair wants to address the issue of this sick and squalid
society which Britain created through partition. But he knows that this
cannot be done in the context of the North of Ireland alone being the unit
of self-determination. Internationally and nationally, the anti-democratic
constituency, the apartheid Orange state, designed to give the British
unionist an internally generated voting majority, is no longer acceptable.
Trimble, Paisley and the loyalist paramilitaries, are already presiding
over the outcome of the decommissioning debate and therefore the talks, in
a manner akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The "leaked" document, the British government gameplan, to accommodate the
Orange Order and Drumcree Mark 3, considered that their key objective "was
to demonstrate that in a moment of crisis in the North, the government is
playing a proactive and imaginative role and going the extra mile to find a
solution."

To ensure that the perception would be acceptable, the document detailed
the importance of bringing on board the media and political support for the
notion of the government doing its best against the intransigence of the
Garvaghy Resident's Committee. They considered that key influences in this
gameplan would be the 26-County government, the US government, the SDLP,
particularly John Hume and Brid Rogers, Archbishop Brady, the Newsletter
and the Irish News.

The entire process was directed at putting pressure on the Garvaghy
Resident's Committee, to do a deal, and get Brendan McKenna, to disown his
political past. The gameplan did not work, and the British resorted to the
tried and trusted method of state violence and terrorism against the
nationalist community of the Garvaghy Road. The implications of Drumcree
Mark 3, and its effects on the current situation of round-table talks will
not be lost on the Sinn Fein political negotiators.

The knowledge that the Mitchell Commission members who will preside over
the decommissioning of weapons, General John De Chastelains has strong
connections with the British Intelligence Services, raises serious
questions about the sincerity of the Blair government, given their
pro-Union stance, to conduct talks with any degree of success even for the
unionist community. 

It would appear that the British strategy is to create a situation where
democrats become impatient and suspicion and mistrust accumulates. Could
the gameplan be to split not only the Republican Movement, but the
unionist/loyalist camp as well. The indications from Mo Mowlam in the face
of a no vote by the unionistss on the decommissioning issue, is that the
round table talks planned for September, may now become proximity talks. We
look back on the last proximity talks and the subsequent utter betrayal of
the the nationalist community.

As Gerry Admas so clearly states: "If the political will exists, there is
the potential to resolve the conflict on the basis of an agreed and
democratic peace settlement among all the Irish people."

While our attention is diverted by the dying kicks of unionist
intransigence, we would all do well to cast an eye on Blair and Labour's
little gameplans, for Wales and Scotland. Sovereignty is still rooted in
Westminster and even with decolonising attitudes prevalent throughout the
world, the British still cling to the notion of Ireland as their territory.
Which is where I came in. Is Blair's gameplan for the Six Counties running
on the same track as Scotland and Wales?

             

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