Everything appears set for the Troops Out Movement Labour Movement Conference to be a major basis for a massive movement against British troops in Ireland which opens out from this conference. (taken from the Dublin Sunday Two weeks ago, Mr. and Mrs. Melarnon who live in Etna Drive, in the heart of the Catholic ghetto in Belfast called the Ardayne, received a letter from Kent. It was an admission by an ex-soldier in the British Army that "1 killed your son as an act of vengeance.
The soldier was Lieutenant Clifford Burrage, age 26, of the Green Howards, who at teatime on 29 October 1971 had Killed Mr. and Mrs. McLarnon's son, Mike, as he was crossing the road only a few yards from his front door, on his way back from buying a packet of cigarettes. 22-year old Mike McLarnon had been killed by three shots; in the same incident a pregnant woman had also been hit by the British Army.
Lieutenant Burrage has left the Army and is studying to be a clergy man. He explains that he is writing the letter to ask forgiveness. The shooting was, he wrote, an act of vengeance because three days earlier, while he had been out in another part of the Ardoyne on footpatrol, he had been hit on the back of the head by a bottle We have consistently agitated "Troops Out Now', not just because of our historic responsibilities towards the Irish working people, but because the whole question of Ireland and the attempts being made by the ruling class to defeat the struggle very direct significance for British workers at the present time.
Labour Government used the bomb explosions in Birmingham as an excuse to rush through the Tory prepared and inspired Prevention of Terrorism Act. This Act came into force without so much as a whimper from the Labour MPs and very little more even from the grass roots of the movement. But it soon became clear just how dangerous this Act was when Irish militants active in the British labour movement began to be hounded and victimised.
the first ripples of protest and real opposition within the British working class. When strike action was threacened over tne case of James O'Rourke, the matter was quickly Council and the T&G WU have begun to take this 'draconian Act up in a serious way. Thé lessons are clear. The actions threatened over O'Rourke were small but, as with If more repression the Pentonville 5, the bastions of law and order can be easily elbowed aside when real action is proposed that has a possibility of involving SHOVCHCHU Now' is increasingly important in the present situation, and a growing number of British workers are coming to recognise this. But the latest make this demand and the linked demand of No concessions to the Loyalists' even more urgent. As a result of the Provo boycott the elections for the so-called-Convention revealed an average poll of below 50% according to the Irish Times, and a turnout of the anti-Unionist population of only around 40% according to Provisional Sinn Fein.
out merchants and double dealers Party have not been able to hoodwink the Catholic masses. throughout the labour movement for ULSTER & Connaught of the anti-Unionist population has a We know to our cost how the VIUnSteI This has, however, at last provoked no 'Irish dimension.' dropped. Both Hammersmith Trades wider layers of the organised workers' CONVENTION threw then.
So the question of Troops Out developments in the North of Ireland ward.
back to the troops.
This shows that despite years of bitter struggle, the minority in the North is undefeated. It shows that the sellof the Social Democratic and Labour But at the same time the forces of 12 of them have. the Loyalists emerged from the elections in a predictably strong position. success. Over 200 delegates from all sections of the labour movement have already been registered and many more will be observers. Red Weekly is particularly pleased at the prospect of a genuine Leinster The Loyalist working class is only too well aware of the dire economic straits which British and Irish capitalism are in at the moment. They are even more determined since the election to hold on to their meagre privi leges at the expense of the Catholic workers. The perks for being a Loyalist may be small, but they are better than nothing. Hence the baying and straining at the leash about no "power sharing' with Catholics and the Irish.
CONCESSIONS These ideas of the British ruling class are buried in the dust that arose when Sunningdale collapsed. But as the Loyalist working class forces demand increasing concessions from the Labour Government, so too the anti-Unionist population is limbering up. The Loyalists may not want to see Sunningdale resurrected, but the anti-Unionists fought Sunningdale too. They are certainly not going to settle for less now than they overThis is the background to a situa tion in which the Provisional ceasefire is likely to break down over the next period. If and when this happens the stakes are bound to be higher than before the ceasefire. Not only are the battle lines clearly drawn between the two communities, but British imperialism has no way forEvery single initiative tried by both Tories and Labour shows one thing there is no British solution.
But this is precisely where we come . The question of the troops will become even more crucial in the developments ahead, and their real role will be even more clearly exposed. On this issue at least the Labour MPs who remained so deafeningly silent during the passage of the Prevention of Terrorism Act have found their voices.
Despite the fact that these 12 want to see British troops removed from Ireland in a variety of ways and for a variety of different reasons, it is to the credit of the TOM that these MPs have been drawn into some kind of action. This can only assist in mobilising greater numbers in the labour and trade union movement. But the various views of these MPs are worth considering, especially as they will find some echo within the workers' movement. They range from those of Leo Abse who is concerned at ...the loss of life of our young soldiers, to those of Marcus Lipton who wants to see a repartition of the north of Ireland. Abse represents the let them get on with it' wing of troops out sentiment, without in any way seeing the question of Ireland as being of significance to British workers, other than the fact that our cities are in danger the longer the troops stay. The argu ments of Marcus Lipton, who has evidently forgotten the consequences of the last artificial British partition of Ireland, have been effectively answered by one of the other MPs who said that it was useless for the British to impose conditions on Andrew Bennett MP wanted the troops removed quickly, but first of all to barracks where they could guarantee that a Bill of Rights for the minority could be implemented within a Loyalist-dominated Six Counties ('I think the majority have the right to run a country'). It is this argument which causes most confusion within the ranks of the labour movement. When confronted with a resolution in their trade union branch or Labour Party for immediate withdrawal, many workers genuinely believe this would cause a bloodbath BLOODBATH The fact is that since British troops went in there has been a con tinual "bloodbath'. What else can you call 1,600 dead, thousands maimed, hundreds serving savage sentences and hundreds in captivity even though they have not been sentenced? What else can you call the countless sectarian assassinations many of them carried out under the eyes of British troops? What else can you call the endless harassment of the anti-Unionist population and the now admitted torturing of suspected Republican prisoners with 'white noise' and deprivation? We say the troops have provoked a mini-bloodbath already, and their continued stay in the North of Ireland can only Well, prepare a bigger one.
Despite the thousands of men and women the Loyalists have under arms, the vast majority of arms searches
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...I'm very sorry but I shot your son...