American Official Detained, Searched & Interrogated in North Ireland
J.McGhee
> Ah, Marie Howe. If I tried to make films of a prison housing terrorists in a
> nation which has experienced a couple of thousand-plus deaths related to
> insurgency I'd expect difficulties.
Ah, John Purbrick. Good propaganda technique! Withhold just enough facts
so that your audience gets the most erroneous and most damaging impression
of your opposition. You must have studied technique at Whitehall in London.
Yes, those nations like South Africa and the Philipines, Nicaragua
under Samosa, Chile and El Salvador certainly do get up tight when you bring
their dispicable acts out into the daylight where everyone can see. That's
why South Africa recently started attacking news cameramen in their country;
that's why Samosa's National Guard blew the brains out of an American reporter
and why so many are "Missing" in Chile and El Salvador. That's why the
reporters were trapped on board the plane at the Manila airport while
Benigno Aquino was assassinated by the Philipine Army and Police.
The world has come a long way since the time when a bill was
introduced in the "mother of parliaments" in London calling for the
**> CASTRATION <** of all Catholic priests, but we still have a long way
to go.
> Yes, they mistreated her. Yes, she was begging for trouble.
Sounds like I've heard these lines so many times before, usually in cases
of rape or wifebeating when the attacker tries to justify his insane acts.
> Maybe when the police and soldiers treated her with
> skepticism they had heard about the last time she was arrested, back home;
Let's see, you must be referring to the time in 1976 when Marie Howe, along
with many others, was arrested for an act of civil disobedience on a picket
line protesting human rights violations in northern Ireland at the docking
of a British ship in Boston Harbor. Of course, Marie Howe and all the other
picketers were released about an hour later, immediately after the picket
was over and all charges against them were dropped as usually happens in
this kind of incident.
There seems to be a long train of precedent for her act from the
Boston Tea Party to the civil disobedience of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin
Luther King and most recently the arrests of some rather prominent Americans
for acts of civil disobedience in front of the South African Embassy in
Washington. Well, I guess all those people must be morally bankrupt
individuals. Isn't that right, John?
> on that occasion she tried to give the cops a false name.
I don't know where you came up with that piece of nonsense, but that is
totally and completely untrue. It is ludicrous to suggest that Marie Howe
would not be recognized by any person in her own home district. In fact,
I would say that she probably blew her cover when she appeared as one of the
main speakers on that occasion.
I can tell you that an American Police Chief who recently travelled
to northern Ireland, speaking from a podium outside the UN in Dag Hammerskjold
Plaza, denounced the Royal Ulster Constabulary as being a completely sectarian
force of repression which did not deserve to be described by the word
"police" because they could not measure of to the standards of any police
force in America.
> Ulster Protestants have made a lot of protests about "Loyalist prisoners"
> lately. Could Mr McGhee explain who these prisoners are? How do he and
> Marie Howe feel about them?
Glad you mentioned that! Let me start by giving you a little recent
history. In **> EVERY <** instance where loyalist prisoners have protested
maltreatment or have protested against the kangaroo courts of northern Ireland,
they have been **> SUPPORTED <** by the Nationalist/Republican prisoners and
Sinn Fein who have experienced the same injustices from the same government,
but on a much larger scale and much more frequently.
At one time the British Army placed Loyalist and Republican prisoners
in the same prison compounds because they thought the two groups would fight
like cats and dogs. To their utter amazement the two groups got along very
well together and supported each other in their protests for better conditions.
The Loyalist and Republican prisoners formed a joint governing council of
prisoners and created a flag with two hands clasped in brotherhood surrounded
by a ring of barbed wire.
When things got to that stage the British decided to separate the
two groups in different compounds or else the Loyalist prisoners might come
to the inevitable conclusion that they didn't need the British for anything.
Andy Tyrie is the head of the Loyalist paramilitary assassination squad
known as the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), which has never been banned or
outlawed in spite of the fact that Andy Tyrie has openly stated in front of
TV cameras that they assassinate Nationalists and that they receive information
from the British Army and RUC on proposed assassination targets. Recently he
stated:
"Some people say that northern Ireland Catholics are second class
citizens. This is untrue. Actually, they are third class citizens.
Northern Ireland Protestants are the second class citzens."
In the 1700's Protestants were not only participants in the Irish
independence movement, they were its founders and principal leaders. These
facts have been purged from the British histories of Ireland and a mythological
doomsday scenario has been promoted by the British government whenever it
refers to a United Ireland in order to promote a chicken-little "the sky
is falling!" mentality among them.
You ought to be more careful about what you say, John. Some people
may begin to suspect you of being a "Fenian plant" for feeding me "just
the right questions".
J. M. McGhee
Adrian Kent
>Ah, John Purbrick. Good propaganda technique! Withhold just enough facts
>so that your audience gets the most erroneous and most damaging impression
>of your opposition. You must have studied technique at Whitehall in London.
prison as a concentration camp. Was this propaganda?
> The world has come a long way since the time when a bill was
>introduced in the "mother of parliaments" in London calling for the
>**> CASTRATION <** of all Catholic priests, but we still have a long way
>to go.
Yes, we have come a long way since this time, if it ever existed. Did it?
Does it have any relevance at all to Ireland in 1985?
> I can tell you that an American Police Chief who recently travelled
>to northern Ireland, speaking from a podium outside the UN in Dag Hammerskjold
>Plaza, denounced the Royal Ulster Constabulary as being a completely sectarian
>force of repression which did not deserve to be described by the word
>"police" because they could not measure of to the standards of any police
>force in America.
Which police chief? What does he or she know about Ireland?
I don't want to suggest that all is well with the R.U.C. - in particular they
are certainly
overwhelmingly (not completely) sectarian (Protestant). Would you agree that
one reason - not by any means the only one - for this is that the Irish
Republican Army (military wing of Sinn Fein) make a special point of killing
Catholics who join the R.U.C.?
> In the 1700's Protestants were not only participants in the Irish
>independence movement, they were its founders and principal leaders. These
>facts have been purged from the British histories of Ireland and a mythological
>doomsday scenario has been promoted by the British government whenever it
>refers to a United Ireland in order to promote a chicken-little "the sky
>is falling!" mentality among them.
> You ought to be more careful about what you say, John. Some people
>may begin to suspect you of being a "Fenian plant" for feeding me "just
>the right questions".
>
> J. M. McGhee
At the risk of falling under similar suspicion, let me ask you a few
more.
Firstly, can we agree on a few basic facts about Ireland:
Northern Ireland - the part which is presently part of the United Kingdom -
has a population which is sharply divided on religious lines. The majority
( roughly 60% ) are Protestant, the minority Catholic. Nearly all the Protestant
community wants to remain part of the U.K., while most of the Catholic community
would like the north to become part of a united Ireland, ruled by the parliamentin Dublin which presently governs the south. Sinn Fein recognises neither the
British nor the Irish parliaments, and in particular aims to overthrow the
Dublin parliament and establish a socialist state governing all Ireland.
Sinn Fein has the support of a (sizeable) minority of the northern Catholics,
and a (small) minority of the southern Catholics.
Given this situation, what do you propose should happen to northern Ireland?
Would you support attempts to have it governed from Dublin, against the wishes
of the majority of its inhabitants? If so, why?
Or do you support Sinn Fein's solution? Again, why?
Why do you dismiss as British propaganda the view that withdrawing British
troops and British rule from N.I. would lead to civil war?
(There is, as you ought to know, significant support in mainland Britain for
precisely this course of action. How do you explain an article by a former
southern Irish foreign minister (*) warning the British government that withdrawing troops could result in chaos engulfing the whole island?)
(*) Conor Cruse O'Brien, writing in The Observer, circa August 1984.)
There is some hope that the London and Dublin governments will soon agree on
measures designed to reduce inter-communal tension in N.I. - such as a joint
parliamentary commission to investigate minority grievances. Sinn Fein and
the I.R.A. will denounce any such agreement as a sham organised by two bodies
which have no role in Ireland. Which side will you be on?